I'll spread my wings: Through the portal Part 6
by SpikeyGirl
Summary: More adventures because Max just can't get enough of the adrenaline rush. At least she's sticking to one dimension this time -not that she has a choice- maybe she'll even mature a bit. That may take some Time, but she's got a lot of it to travel through. Maybe some romance will creep in.
1. Silverstone

Anyone who follows me on Twitter will know I have been listening to random music, from Disney(old skool stuff from stuff like the Lion King and Mulan) and 90's music.

For anyone who cares to review this humble collection of words I masquerade as a chapter, I would love it if you could share your favourite song or two from either of those two groups.

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><p>It was only because she could sense people there that Max and Itachi went to NCIS on the Saturday they got to D.C.. Ziva and McGee seemed to be lying to each other about why they were there. What confused and worried Max was when Ziva admitted to being worried about DiNozzo. She figured now was the best time to make their presence known.<p>

"What's wrong with my brother?" Max hid her grin as both agents practically jumped out of their skins. And they thought only Gibbs could sneak up on them.

"We haven't seen him since yesterday and we can't get hold of him."

"That sounds familiar," Itachi drawled. "Must be a family trait."

"Where have you been anyway? Tony tried to get hold of you several times," Ziva asked narrowing her eyes at Max.

"My work takes me off the grid sometimes," was Max's offered explanation. They didn't need to know details and they didn't have the clearance to know the vaguer points.

"What exactly do you do?" McGee asked, Max suspected he had looked into her background, she did wonder what he had found but wasn't too worried about that.

"Classified, most of the time anyway. I think we're getting a bit off topic here. My brother being missing…"

"We better find him then," Gibbs said shocking every one, no one had noticed him turn up, even the two shinobi but they both hid it well.

"What a brilliant idea, why didn't I think of that?" Max exclaimed sarcastically, slapping her forehead, gaining weird looks from the team. "What?"

"It is sometimes scary how similar to Tony you are," Ziva explained.

"Thanks." Max wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

"What are you doing here?" Director Sheppard asked as she approached the team. She didn't sound too pleased but Max didn't care, she was used to annoying authority figures.

"I was planning on visiting my brother but you sent him on a little mission which may be compromised."

"How do you know about that?" Max just smirked, she wasn't going to tell. The director turned to the rest of the team. "McGee, get a location of this cell."

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><p>Max didn't realise she'd zoned out until she found herself walking to the Multiple Threat Assessment Centre with the others. It looked like a miniature cinema complete with tiered rows of cushioned chairs and huge screen. McGee immediately sat at on of the consoles to the left and started tapping away, bringing up some traffic cameras searching for Tony's car.<p>

It was a relief when they found it, following the car to see where it was going, holding on to that strand of hope that he was ok and his cover was fine.

Until the car exploded on screen.

The silence was deafening, for a second it was like everything had just stopped as the events processed through their minds.

"That better not have just happened," Max growled, glaring at the screen until Itachi thought she might set it on fire and drew her into a hug. Max shrugged it off forcefully and stormed towards the door. "He is not dead," she said before leaving.

Everyone turned to Itachi, expecting him to follow her.

"I trust her not to do anything stupid. Too stupid anyway."

"We should go and investigate the bombing, gear up." Gibbs ordered, he then turned to Itachi who wasn't certain what he should be doing. "Go help Abby." Itachi shrugged, he wasn't an investigator so probably wouldn't be much help and Abby was a nice girl even if she was a bit inquisitive.

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><p>At the burnt out wreckage of the car the team weren't so surprised at seeing Max there as they waved their ID around to get past the police. What was slightly unnerving was the smile on her face as she poked through the remains, wearing gloves of course.<p>

"What have you found?" Gibbs asked as the rest of the team, almost reluctantly, got on with their jobs.

"He's not dead, this isn't him." Max said the relief and joy evident in her voice, a bit more unnerving for the team, from what they had seen of her she kept her emotions at bay. The others couldn't help taking a closer look at the body.

"How do you know?" It was too late to ask Max that, she'd already disappeared leaving the team to process the scene, a bit of hope in their hearts that Max was right and Tony wasn't the identity of the corpse.

The hope faded when they found Tony's ID and gun under the drivers seat. It was with heavy hearts they finished processing the car.

Even finding Max and Itachi playing some form of tennis, using a scrunched up piece of paper and a note pad each, across the bull pen barely lightened the mood.

"Will you stop doing that?" Ziva snapped as they continued even as the rest of the team tried to work. McGee was watching the explosion on repeat as if the next time he saw it he would see something different.

Max slammed the paper ball across the room at Itachi before tossing the pad of paper onto a desk. She turned to face Ziva and held up her hand, taking down a finger and a silent countdown, as she put down the last finger the lift dinged.

"It's not Tony!" Ducky called joyfully waving around a piece of paper.

"You see! I've been trying to tell you that for ages," Max grumbled.

"How can you tell?" McGee asked.

"Tony almost died from the plague and it severely scarred his lungs, the body I've got down in autopsy hasn't."

"Tony had the plague?" Max yelped.

"If you'd stuck around you may have found that out earlier," Gibbs said, entering in his usual way, swiftly and with coffee in hand, less usually followed by the director who had the same serious expression.

"So who is in autopsy?" Ziva asked.

"And more importantly where's DiNozzo."

"That's something I'd like to also know," a newcomer asked. It was getting a bit cramped in the bull pen with so many adults, so Max dragged Itachi off to get a drink. They managed to return just as the newcomer stormed off.

The lift doors opened to reveal a grinning Tony.

"Hey, my car blew up this morning. Did you do that?" Tony asked, the newcomer reacted violently, shoving Tony up against the lift.

"Where is La Grenouille?" the man demanded. Tony looked at his team and lightly coughed. The man looked to find multiple guns pointed at his face, his eyes naturally focussing on the slightly bigger and shiny one Max was holding. The man let Tony go, reluctantly. The team lowered their guns, also reluctantly.

"Happy frog-hunting! You might want to take the stairs. I had a little upset tummy this morning. Phew!" The lift doors closed, and Tony turned to the team and grins, "What, no balloons?"

"Do you normally get balloons when you turn up after being thought of as dead? I normally get bitched at when I turn up. Or punched." Max mused, rubbing her jaw a bit, she occasionally got phantom pains from Haku's punch.

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><p>The second Tony stepped out of the Director's office he found himself being dragged off by Max. She seemed to be way to happy and the fact Jenny had emerged as they reached the bottom of the stairs, looking slightly annoyed, more than from his debriefing. It made him wonder just what she had done.<p>

"I'm borrowing you for about a week and a half, she's probably just seen the thing on her desk saying she can't do anything about it," Max sniggered. "And don't worry, it's not coming out of your vacation time." She looked at her arm. "We should get to the airport with a few hours to spare." She continued to drag him along Itachi falling into step as they passed the bull pen. "See you guys in a week or so."

"Where are we going?"

"England."

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><p>Despite it being early July, England was cold and damp. That was about normal and Max couldn't help but smile at the familiarity. She hadn't told her brother why they were here, opting to keep it a surprise for the moment. It actually had come at an ideal time, trying to keep Tony from moping about his now ex-girlfriend.<p>

Since Max didn't actually have anything to do towards her latest assignment till Thursday the three of them spent their time looking around London and some of the places nearby. Wednesday night they found themselves at a nice small country pub and Max decided to finally let them know while they waited for their food.

"This weekend is the British Formula 1 Grand Prix at Silverstone. MI something have heard some chatter about it through various channels and it's worrying them especially as one of the royal family will be in attendance as well as other high status people. They can't call off the event, that would be like cancelling the Super Bowl. Instead they've asked a couple of agents from a few places to be there, they also asked I be there. I'm going to be there tomorrow for the briefing and I'll be there for most of the time until Sunday evening."

"So why am I here?" Tony asked, he'd figured out why Itachi was here.

"I thought you might want to come. Fast cars and hot pit babes." Tony had to admit he liked the sound of that. "I don't expect either of you to do any work this weekend if you don't want to. Just enjoy it and stay out of trouble."

Max wondered if she would regret letting them spend time together without her, she could only imagine some of the stories Itachi could tell. All he had to do was keep out anything classified and he had some very interesting stories.

That reminded her, she wanted to get Tony a higher clearance so she could show him her home. For some reasons she held more siblingly affection for him than she had any of her other dimension siblings. Though she had found out they weren't actually related to her, maybe she had subconsciously known.

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><p>It was with great difficulty Max dragged her self out of bed at he crack of dawn the next day. She was tired, felt mildly hungover and wanted nothing more than to get back into bed and snuggle up to Itachi's sexy body. Instead she had to get ready for the briefing, she wasn't turning up as she was now. As she showered she tried to remember just how much she had drunk last night. She hadn't had a hangover like this since Hogwarts and she had done a lot of drinking at Hogwarts, not much since though.<p>

Eventually she finished up her daily morning rituals and sniggered at Itachi's sleeping form, he had tried to keep up with her drinking last night but didn't have the tolerance and would end up with a bigger hangover, she'd left some painkillers and a glass of water by the bed for when he woke up. She kissed his forehead before slipping out of the room, she had a bit more time than she'd thought so she had a cup of coffee to help wake up.

Silverstone was only a small village, an unusual home for a racetrack but as such it was only a short walk to the track from the guest home they were staying at. The agents were congregating in one of the conference rooms that overlooked the circuit and pit lane. A few of them were already there and glanced at her as she sauntered in, they knew she was there for the same reason as they were or she would never have been allowed into the room.

She took a seat next to Alex Rider, he had been the one who had asked for her help. It was probably back in Australia she'd last seen him. With him were K-Unit who vaguely remembered her from ages ago but seemed ok with her joining in their conversation.

Another familiar face rushed in just before the briefing was about to start. Max suppressed a groan, if Chloe was here, there was a good chance some Cherubs were too.

"My name is Elston Harkin, MI-6, I will be commanding this operation." The man sitting at the front facing them all began. He had that upper class London accent that was music to Max's ears. It made all other accents sound crude and rough and Max couldn't help imagining him with a top hat and a monocle.

The plan for security was simple enough from what Max heard when she finally decided to pay attention, the place was divided into sectors, each group of people, a mix of agents and military, would be assigned two adjacent sectors in an overlapping fashion so there were two groups per sector at any given point. Every hour they would rotate by a sector. This meant they would still have one of the sectors they had previously been assigned to plus a new one every hour.

There was an exception, Chloe and her 'agents' were going to be observing from some of the grandstands and being general spectators.

All of them were given all-access passes with photo ID and a special watermark that would fluoresce under UV light, it marked them as special security to who ever need to know. They would all be given radios when they started their shift.

Once the briefing was over most of them filed out to familiarize themselves with the grounds. Alex and Max were asked to stay by Agent Harkin who had been taking the briefing. They weren't that surprised, they had yet to be assigned jobs.

"Agent Rider, Rho, it's a pleasure to have you both on my team. The reports of your work make excellent reading, or at least the ones that aren't buried under a mountain of red tape. I guess you would like to know what you will be doing this weekend?"

"Actually-" Max started to say but Alex put a hand over her mouth before she could say whatever sarcastic remark she'd planned.

"I've marked you down as free agents, though I'd like you two to focus on keeping an eye on some of the high profile people." Both of them nodded, it wasn't a bad assignment, a bit challenging with the amount of people that would be in attendance but it was doable. Max did consider using shadow clones to assist but all it would take was an elbow in the wrong place for it to disappear and create a scene.

"Does anyone know about us? The extra security I mean," Alex asked, it was always a bit of a problem when they people you were protecting didn't know it and tried to get rid of you.

"The teams have all been made aware and when the guests arrive they will be informed."

"We should probably let them get used to our presence or it could upset the team dynamics when it matters."

"Then you two are dismissed." Max cracked a bit of a smile as she left the room with Alex, it had taken a bit of restraint not to exit via the window like she would at home, she was going to enjoy this assignment.

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><p>I had actually planned this chapter and the next out in my head before the British Grand Prix but it was difficult to write and so its just before the German one I post this.<p>

Do any of you guys, my amazing readers, watch the F1? (Or even know what it is)

For anyone who cares I have a way around the whole 'no real people in fanfiction' thing, you'll see next chapter (if you still are reading this, I hope you will)

Anyway, reviews are loved like a good cup of tea. Something that gets me through each day.


	2. Friday Practice

I know it's been a while, not quite two months, but a lot's been going on.

First and Foremost: I got into University! At my first choice on the course I wanted. Not quite the grades I wanted but I got in so I don't care.

I then had to search for a place to live, I live two miles too close to be eligible for halls or residence. I have a house with four guys now, they're pretty cool with similar interests and we've seen each other for two days and get along great.

I also went camping, I would have gotten drunk if not for the fact it's not possible, I'm either sober/hyperactive or puking. Ended up staying up till 5am talking about various motorsports in front of a fire with some guy.

The rest of summer I have no excuse other than I write better when actually having other work I'm meant to be doing.

Also I have the next few chapters planned (only one more on F1) how long it takes depends on my timetable, social life and watching F1(Singapore this weekend). I start Uni on Monday.

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><p>Contrary to popular belief, Cherubs were not sweet, chubby, naked babies with wings carrying bows and arrows. They were annoying kids who didn't seem to understand the concept of subtlety even if it was spelt out for them using small words that even a toddler could understand.<p>

Max was annoyed. The second Lauren, a cherub she had worked with before, had spotted her the girl had waved and rushed over, dragging the kid they had found in Australia and her brother along.

"Rho!"

That just made it worse. It was a small blessing that not many people were still by the gate, instead watching the first Free Practice session on Friday where Max would have loved to be had she not been wandering around to check on the groups. It was also raining so the longer she stayed put the wetter she was getting.

"First person to tell me the meaning of 'subtlety' gets a pint," Max offered with a mostly straight face with maybe a hint of deadpan.

"Of beer?" James asked hopefully. Max slapped her forehead, kids these days (she personally would have asked for vodka).

"I recall that offer and politely ask you guys leave me alone and go do your job. And next time you see me around here, _you do not know me_. Nor do you know _anyone else_ who may be working here," Max growled. Looks of realisation dawned on Lauren, the Australian kid and James had already twigged it. "And pass that on to any of your other cherub friends here." With that she stalked off, her pit-pass slapping loudly against her wet t-shirt with each step she took. An umbrella would have impeded her vision too much and a rain jacket made too much noise.

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><p>As she headed to the next group of agents she wondered how Tony and Itachi were enjoying the good old British summer. She wasn't sure if they were planning to watch any of the Friday practice sessions. It had been pretty late when she'd got back yesterday and she had been up before them again, not really giving much time for chatting.<p>

It had been barely breaking dawn when she had been woken by her alarm, Itachi seeming to sleep through it. She was only up so early because part of her job had been to check on the night shift before they finished and to fill them in again when they went back on shift in the evening so there was an overlap. Because of that she had known it was going to be a long day and a long weekend. It was nothing new to her, she'd done worse at Hogwarts.

It had been more difficult to get up today, not just because of the early hour but more that Itachi didn't seem to want to let go of her. He hadn't drunk at all last night so was more awake when she tried to escape. Not that she was trying all that hard in the first place. It was beyond tempting to stay in bed a little longer wrapped in the strong warm arms of her lover.

Max abruptly stopped thinking about the events of that morning and tried to focus on her job, also trying to fight the redness forming in her cheeks as she approached the next security team. She had been a teeny bit late this morning because of Itachi. Her alarm would be set for earlier tomorrow, just in case there was a repeat.

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><p>After she finished her route she walked along the pit wall, some cars were still going in and out to test out the setup of the car so she avoided actually walking down the middle of the pit lane. She didn't want to get run over by one of the cars.<p>

Some of the engineers smiled at her and one of the drivers, who was talking to his race engineer, gave a short wave. She and Alex had made a friendly impression on the teams, not having the stoic attitude of most of the other agents. When pit lane looked clear she dashed across to one of the garages where she spotted Alex talking to one of the test drivers.

"Heads up on the cherubs being a couple of beers short of a six pack," Max quietly warned. Alex snorted, he'd already bumped into them but escaped quickly before they could get a better look. There was a buzz of activity as one of the teams cars came in and briefed the engineers of what he would like changed before their next couple of laps.

The way the team worked reminded Max of some of the teams back home but on a bigger scale, people knowing what to do and doing it well with everyone else doing their jobs around them. It was like watching a well oiled machine.

Max felt a burst of information, she'd figured she could post invisible clones around attached to walls and places people wouldn't be able to get, one of them had just dispelled. She allowed the information to wash over her, watching the relevant bit in a sort of split screen, her grey right eye still watching her surroundings while her left red eye watched her clones replay. It was a bonus of having a wolf demon in your head, you had a bit more control over things like this. Though it did give her a headache if she did it for too long.

There had been a bit of suspicious activity at the entrance to the pit lane from the track, the person had been removed from the site and her clone had found no evidence of tampering in any way. She allowed the image to fade from her eye and once again focused on her surrounding, everyone had been too busy to notice her zoning out. Except Alex, but he figured it was usual for her.

After the first practice Max found herself in a different garage, talking to the two German drivers in their home language, trying to regain some of the fluency she had gained with Ed and Al. It felt weird speaking German again, like using a muscle that had been idle for too long.

With a lot of people it was easy to remember a language, like a riding a bike, Max wasn't one of those people. She had worked hard to learn any language and it was easy for her to lose it, the only reason she had gained any Japanese in the first place was because of her love of Manga in its original language. She wondered if her well thumbed through English-Japanese dictionary was still on her bedside table at home. German had only come to her because of her taste in music, Rammstein being one of her favourite bands back home.

The two drivers were trying to hide their giggles when she stumbled over and horribly mispronounced some of the longer words and of course, her strange accent. They only giggle harder when she started swearing in Japanese, complaining about how German was a stupid language.

Alex had decided to poke his head in and speak fluent German setting off the German drivers laughing when Max insulted him in every language she knew how to swear in. Which was a lot, and partially the reason she hadn't learnt so much German in school, looking up swear words had been so much more interesting back then.

She was interrupted from her tirade when both Alex's and her own ear-pieces, which connected to their radios, squawked into life alerting them to the fact they needed to know something. It was a courtesy in case they had company as the information was not something that should become public.

"I swear if it's about those cherubs then I'm quitting," Max grumbled as she left, she would fill in Alex, leaving him with the two German drivers. She knew they were probably laughing at her grasp of their language but she didn't mind as much as she let on, it was a way of breaking the tension.

"Rho here, Report? Over," she spoke clearly into the microphone that rested on her cheek an inch or so from her mouth.

"_A man has been apprehended at the end of the pit lane. Be on the look out for anything suspicious. Out._" Max smirked, having seen it from her clones view point, she clicked a button to acknowledge the info, it kept down on the radio chatter. The less chatter there was, the harder it was to identify their frequency and listen in.

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><p>The worst part of a mission like this was the waiting. Especially if you have a gut instinct that something will happen, something big. Max had that gut feeling. But by the end of the second free practice there had been no sign of trouble. End of the practice for the day wasn't the end of her day though, there was still plenty of time for something to happen. It would just be less interesting with no cars going around the circuit with the music of their lovely V8 engines.<p>

Max considered the rest of the weekend, letting herself figure out what she would do and when she would likely act. She probably should have done this earlier but she often forgot. Now she was sat on top of the newly built wing immersing herself in her imagination, looking for the plan that someone else was going to set in motion.

It was difficult when the target could be many things. Maybe someone would want to screw up the race and cause all the cars to crash by some form of sabotage, or perhaps not let some of them race by kidnapping or threatening them. F1 drivers earn a load of money, sometimes on par with football players, so it wasn't unlikely that there could be a ransom situation. Similar with a car, worth a million pounds each and loads of high tech stuff, it was easier to steal a driver though.

It wasn't just the drivers who were high profile potential targets with all the guests that would be around on the race day. That was going to be a nightmare and a half.

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><p>The sun had long since dipped below the horizon by the time Max got back to the guest home. It was nice to see it in one piece, hopefully she would find the guys in one piece too, and with any luck her dignity would also be intact and no embarrassing stories were shared. She held very little hope for that last one.<p>

She snuck into the sitting room, creeping up on Itachi, holding a finger to her lips to indicate to Tony that he shouldn't point her out. When she was close enough she put her hands over his eyes, her mind pointing out there was no way he didn't know she was there, she just wondered what he would do. It didn't quite end how she had expected as seconds later she found herself sprawled ungracefully in Itachi's lap.

"Hola," she greeted, twisting around so she could see them both, now lying across Itachi's lap, letting his warmth seep through her wet clothes. All of the tension from her muscles seemed to melt away as she relaxed.

"Stressful day?" Tony asked, giving her a pointed look, he wasn't quite comfortable with how she was lying across Itachi but as an older brother he had a right to disapprove.

"No, just boring, nothing good happens during Friday practice other than the occasional detour off the track," Max yawned, she shivered a bit causing Itachi to pull her up into a warm hug and push his cup of hot chocolate into her hands.

"Wear a jacket tomorrow." There were unspoken words between them as They remembered the result of the last time she got ill. Tony noticed the atmosphere turn awkward but chose not to delve into it.

"So, what happens tomorrow?" Max smiled a bit and explained, there would be the third free practice in the morning then qualifying in the afternoon. Qualifying had three parts, after the first one the seven slowest drivers were knocked out, their places were confirmed on the grid in the last seven spots, after the second qualifying the slowest seven were locked in place and ten went to the last qualifying session to decide that order. After each session the times were reset so they had to do at least one lap during the session, unless they hadn't made it that far.

Also the top ten cars, once qualified in the third session, were not allowed to be altered in any way and the drivers were weighed to make sure their car met the minimum required weight with them. Max narrowed her eyes as she explained the last point, if she had to pick a time to kidnap any drivers that would be it, just before the press conference with the top three drivers. Assuming any of the drivers were targets. She had a sinking feeling about this.

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><p>Any resemblance to real people in entirely coincidental :P<p>

Reviews are loved like caffeine (which I have entirely too little of)


	3. Qualifying and the Race

Last F1 chapter, posted just before the Japanese Grand Prix weekend kicks off.

More stuffs been happening, started my lectures, I have two days with no lectures but I will probably fill that time up with research or other studenty things, maybe some writing if you're lucky.

I went to Collectormania in London last weekend with my sister, met Joe Flanigan, the guy who plays Shepard in Stargate Atlantis, he was pretty cool. Met some other people as well, got humongous blisters but it was pretty awesome.

I've also taken up taekwando, after one session I found out just how uncoordinated my limbs can be, and that I have muscles in my leg that seem to have been gathering dust until now.

On the plus side, it's been less than a month since my last update and I have proper internet and it's 2am at the time of posting for me.

Any similarities to real people are purely coincidental. And seeing as none of you seem to watch the amazing sport that is F1 I don't think you would be able to tell anyway.

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><p>Max hated being right sometimes. Really, couldn't for once the chatter be wrong along with her gut?<p>

The top ten cars had parked up after the third qualifying in Parc Ferme where no mechanic could touch the cars unless approved, or the driver wanted to start from the pit lane. The drivers had gone in to get weighed, Max had sent one of her invisibleclones to stick to them, hoping it was an unnecessary measure.

It wasn't. Max watched with her split screen vision as two guys with big guns had been waiting for the drivers around the first corner, a guy behind them also producing a gun preventing them from running. They had been herded into a hospitality room and forced to kneel and have their hands bound behind their backs. Not all of them had been happy at this, the rugged Australian driver had lashed out only to be knocked back with the butt of a gun. The others restrained themselves as two more people entered the room with guns, a woman and another man.

The woman's appearance elicited a response from a few drivers, most notably the blond German driver Max had been talking with yesterday. There was obviously a history between them. The woman probably could be a supermodel of Japanese descent, but she had hints of danger around her with how she dressed, the katana on her back helping with that image along with the skin tight black clothes and high heels that really weren't practical for anyone.

She walked past the line of drivers, stopping in front of the German driver and crouching down to his level, he continued to look down, refusing to meet her eye. Only from the reflection of one of the framed pictures could Max's clone see the cruel smirk on the woman's face as she stroked the Germans cheek and force his head up. He jerked his head away and returned to looking down as if trying to pretend she wasn't there. There was a sharp crack as the woman back handed him.

Max figured now would be the best time to intervene, before any more harm came to the drivers, either physical or psychological. Finding somewhere secluded she removed her radio and pulled out a dead Gameboy, heated up a bit as if she'd been playing with it for a while and crouched down to switched places with her invisible clone, which had been crouched hidden under a table in the corner of the hostage room. A small pop announced her arrival drawing the occupants attention. She tossed the Gameboy down in mock frustration as if it had just broken and been the cause of the pop.

Max had to force herself to exaggerate the appearance of pain when one of the men dragged her from under the table by her hair and threw her down in front of the woman. The drivers all looked shocked but the woman assumed it was because of her being there, not who it was.

"Well, what do we have here? A child." Max almost growled at that. "Are you supposed to be here little girl?" The woman's voice was dripping with condescendence as she picked up the Gameboy to inspect it as one of the men patted her down and after finding nothing, Max had hidden her pass in her boot, forced her to her knees.

"Are you?" Max retorted, trying to temporarily regress a few years for the right attitude. It must have been good as she was back-handed back to the floor.

"Hmm, I'm not sure whether to make an example out of you or deal with you later," the woman mused, pressing a finger to her pursed lips in mock thought. A cruel smirk twisted her features and she tried to stomp on Max's back with her heel.

"You're going to regret your choice either way," Max grinned, having rolled into a crouch, avoiding the pointy heel, her leg arced through the air knocking the woman's gun from her hand and catching it as she straightened up to a standing position.

The men made to move in on her but the woman held up a hand, halting them.

"She's mine," the woman hissed. In the reflective surface of a picture Max saw the blond German driver flinch and look at the floor. There was a smooth hiss of metal against leather as the woman unsheathed her katana. Max tucked the gun into her jeans, it would only get in the way and she didn't want to accidently shot one of the drivers.

The two women glared, evaluating each other, Max wasn't willing to move and allow the woman between her and the drivers. The woman seemed to have the advantage, the reach and lethality of the blade she wielded, Max wasn't fazed, not with all she'd experienced.

The woman slashed forward, Max sidestepped and brought her leg up, behind the woman's defence to land a solid blow across her stomach, her knee leading the blow. She could feel the steel ribs of the corset the woman wore, it limited the effect of the blow spreading the momentum to the point the woman probably barely felt it, yet left Max's leg throbbing a bit.

With the initial moves played it was time for the fun to begin, the two women began to move faster and more viciously. Max was trying to carefully keep herself as a blockade, gaining a few light cuts in the process when she realised what ever move she would have made would have left the drivers unprotected. They were her priority and she would protect them until backup arrived or she knew she was in a position to not only take out the woman but disarm and take down all of the men.

From what she could tell, to do so she would have to get behind the woman which left the drivers unprotected for a few seconds. An idea popped into her head, it was a bit childish but would hopefully distract the woman.

As she dodged the next slash of the katana she slipped past and grabbed a huge handful of the woman's hair and pulled it as she launched her offensive on the men. There was a clatter as the katana dropped while the woman was tossed around as Max moved until she let go of the hair. The men dropped like flies having not expected the attack.

But then again so did Max when the woman retrieved the gun she had stolen from the woman earlier. The butt of the pistol smashed against the back of Max's head and pain exploded throughout her skull, her vision briefly going white as she hit the floor. It was far from enough to keep her down, though the bullets that hit the back of her enhanced Kevlar vest did it's best to help. Max lay still for a few moments, allowing the woman to think she'd won. Then Max lifted herself up, picking out the small rounds from the vest and dropping them one by one.

Her cover had just been blown, innocent kids don't generally wear Kevlar. She didn't care, she'd been shot at and she was taking it personally.

"Who do you work for?" the woman demanded, pointing the gun at the back of Max's head, a place obviously unprotected. Max wasn't sure why that hadn't been the first target. Max considered her answer for a few seconds before ducking her head and spinning to knock the gun away from her. The woman had a tighter grip on it this time and it was only pointed in a different direction when she leapt on the woman, grinding the pretty face into the carpet, twisting the weapon out of her hand.

"You'll never leave this room alive," the woman hissed. Max frowned and pulsed her FA to see if the woman was just bluffing. She didn't feel like getting shot again, snipers were more likely to go for head shots which she doubted she would survive.

The three snipers covering the entrance to the building told her that, no, the woman wasn't bluffing. On the plus side there were no rigged explosives. People were easy to disable, explosives weren't so much.

The snipers were easily dispatched by a couple of her pre-placed clones. The snipers must have known where the best spots were and waited until the end of the race to get into position, Max had been regularly checking good places for sniper nests and waited for the best moment to strike.

"You think that scares me? A bunch of words from you. You obviously haven't been doing this long," Max said scathingly, she maliciously pressed her knee into the woman's back smirking at the slight whimper of pain the woman couldn't hold in.

One of the woman's accomplices was stirring, reminding Max that she should actually wrap this all up. It was a shame she only had one pair of hand cuffs but she took great delight in cranking them as tight as she could around the woman's wrists. She removed some sebon from the heel of her boot and sent the mooks back into the wonderful land of unconsciousness.

She turned to the drivers, ready to untie them, all of them had the same shell shocked look on their faces. What worried Max more was the look on the cute blond German's face, he'd reacted badly to the woman's appearance and look like he was completely in shock. She moved quickly, flicking out a knife and cutting the blond and his team mates bonds, she passed the team mate her knife so he could help the others. Max knelt down slowly in front of the blond.

"You're ok, she's not going to hurt you anymore," Max whispered gently, she bent her head lower to try to look him in the eye. The bruise that had blossomed on his cheek seemed huge. "I'm here to protect you." She was careful not to initiate any contact, she didn't know how he would react in this state, anything could set him off.

From the look in his eyes he wasn't understanding her, English just wasn't getting through, Max wracked her brains for the German vocab that she needed, any progress she had made yesterday had been lost to the urgency of the situation.

"Schützen. Ich schützen du," she finally managed to stutter out, even to her own ears the words sounded mangled but the driver looked at her and cracked the faintest of smiles. "Ich halten du sicher." More mangled words but the smile grew a bit more and he looked up to meet her eyes, she could see they were watery but no tears had fallen, he was too stubborn for that. "Come on, you look like you need a drink." She helped him up and let him lean on her shoulder until he was steady on his feet. The other drivers were milling around, unsure what to do now. They had been spooked by the woman's threat and so were avoiding the door.

Again Max flashed FA and saw some agents were position down the corridor each side waiting for movement. Amongst them were Tony and Itachi, standing with Alex who had obviously recognised them from Australia. She knelt down and slipped her pass out of her boot, hopefully they would notice it before they opened fire. She slipped passed the other drivers keeping the German close.

As she pushed down the door handle she heard the feint clicks of guns being armed. She stuck her arm out, holding the pass, waited a few seconds and poked her head out too, grinning sheepishly at them.

"It's all safe, the threat has been neutralised." One of the senior agents nodded at her and allowed some paramedics through to check up on the drivers and a few agents to secure the room.

"Told you she would be in the middle of it," Max heard Itachi mutter to her brother. Her lip twitched into a smirk, of course she was in the middle, it was the best place to be. She followed the paramedics back into the room, keeping close to the driver she had taken onto herself to keep safe.

* * *

><p>When she'd been told to debrief, she'd left the driver in Itachi's care with some hot chocolate, there wasn't a person on the planet she trusted more at that moment and hot chocolate was the best remedy for shock that didn't contain alcohol or caffeine. Agent Harkin hadn't been pleased with Tony's presence but Max had persuaded Harkin that another person off the books wasn't a bad thing if someone somehow got hold of the agent manifesto for this operation.<p>

The rest of the day was mostly uneventful. Everyone fell back into their routine, a story was feed to the spectators, the drivers were given a choice on whether they wanted to drive tomorrow. The mental trauma could affect their driving but it was their choice. Max stuck around the garages, personally checking up on the drivers. She'd managed to get personally attached to the subjects of her mission, something that hadn't happened for a long time.

It was only because Itachi practically kidnapped her that she actually went back to the guest house for the night, taking the opportunity to check her over for injuries, in the stress of everything else no one had thought that she might have got hurt.

* * *

><p>Race day was buzzing, the air was practically electric and it was easy for Max to get swept up in the excitement and forget she still had a job to do, just because one incident had occurred didn't mean someone else might try.<p>

The pit straight was packed with the cars, drivers, engineers and reporters as they prepared for the start of the race. It was raining a bit to most of what could be seen were umbrellas in various team colours.

At 1pm everyone vacated the track save the drivers who were strapped into their cars, revving the engines. Two green lights started the warm up lap, the drivers desperately weaving across the track to get as much heat into their tires and brakes as they could. Warmer tires meant better grip. They returned to the start/finish line down the pit straight and waited. One by one five red lights lit up above the start/finish line. The cars were revving up as they lit up.

Then a few seconds later the five red lights went out and the cars roared away from their grid positions, trying to make up as many places in the first few corners without connecting with some of the more daring drivers.

If watching a race on TV was thrilling then being there in person was ten times cooler. Max felt immersed in it all as she watched from the pit wall, her clones giving her many viewpoints, showing her all of the action, no matter where on track it was.

A couple of cars crashed out and others had some form of car failure that ended their race, it was pretty much expected in most races. It was very rare for all the cars to finish a race.

Max was happy that all of the drivers from the top ten yesterday finished. A Brit standing on the top step filled her with pride even though that wasn't technically her current nationality, the cute German was on the second step, a rarity for him with his car this year not being with some of the other teams in terms of pace. The third step was occupied by another Brit, his first podium of his F1 career in a car that no one thought had the pace to get even near the top three despite good qualifying.

The crowd went wild, with two countrymen on the podium they had a reason to go wild, and even the German got cheers from the people. There was going to be a lot of partying going on tonight, Max had received invites from most of the teams and during the course of the evening she visited them all before she disappeared off to her next adventure.

* * *

><p>With the F1 over the trio headed back for the airport, Tony had to get back to work, he wasn't looking forward to the grilling he would get from the Director. On the plus side, Max was lending him her car since his had been blown up. Max did have a pretty sweet car.<p>

Itachi wanted to go home but from Max's body language she wasn't ready to cut short her wanders. It was just a matter of time before she would get another call and have something else to do.

They were sitting in Hyde Park when the call came from the SGC, a gouald ship had crashed in Ealing, not far from London. They wanted someone who knew the dangers to get there and contain the scene before some innocent civilian came by.

Max had grinned at Itachi and headed off to where her bike was parked.

* * *

><p>I could translate the German for you but it's pretty much what Max said in simpler German words<p>

Bonus points for anyone who can guess the next new crossover


	4. The next great adventure

So maybe I disappeared off the face of FFNet for a few(three) months. What can I say, University is a lot of work and very inspiration draining. Maybe I'll get back into the swing of writing more but I can't guarantee anything. Especially as I try to cope until the middle of march when the F1 starts again and fills the void it left last year with the lovely sound of a V8 engine revving, and this year: Six world champions on the grid. Need now.

Also living with mice in an attic with a leaking ceiling = not nice. Don't try it. I don't care how cute it looks. Mice like chocolate. _My_ chocolate.

Not all bad though, Uni is fun and living here had it's highlights and rarely gets boring.

Any more info wanted just check out my Twitter, ask questions if you want.

Anyway, have some of my sleepless nights and my boring lectures in the form of a chapter.

* * *

><p>In comparison to London, Ealing felt more like home to Itachi, a nice mix of green areas and housing, almost reminding him of how the Uchiha compound used to be. The slightly caved in block of flats that marked their destination however was something that had never graced Konoha's skyline.<p>

The block of flats was part of a disused housing estate, another building showed signs of something having crashed into it, a piece of blue tarpaulin covering the hole. Itachi couldn't help but stare at it as Max navigated the narrow streets, the engine of her bike purring gently. It had probably been modified at some point using either chakra or magic since on the open road it had been a loud, roaring beast.

They weren't the only investigative force on the scene, a green and cream car was just drawing up as the pair of shinobi dismounted from the bike. Max ignored their presence heading straight for the building.

"Wait!" A woman had climbed out of the car and was hurrying towards them. Surprising Itachi, Max actually stopped and turned to face the woman.

"Unless you have an extremely good reason, you should leave this place well alone for the next few hours," Max said, her tone of voice was flat and the light in her eyes seemed to have dulled since they had left the park in central London. It took a few moments for Itachi to formulate a theory as to why. Max's last experience with the gouald hadn't been a good one, as punctuated by her prolonged absence after it.

"I'm a journalist working on a story about the mysterious chunks of building missing."

"That's not a good enough reason. This building is off limits."

"Under whose authority?" the woman practically demanded, she wasn't used to someone still in her teenage years telling her no.

"The same people who gave me this," Max said holding up her ID to be inspected. By this point Itachi had decided to leave it up to Max, it had been proven multiple times she could blag her way through most things. She also always knew more about the situation than she should.

"You're American?"

"Part of an international task force. We both know there's something hinky in there. I've dealt with its kind before." Max said, snatching back her ID and stowing it back into its pouch.

"How do you know I haven't?"

"They only seem to bother the U.S. and to my knowledge the Doctor hasn't met them yet." The woman looked at her in shock. "I know a lot Sarah Jane Smith, this is one you should probably sit out, you cannot reason with these people."

"Then how do you plan on dealing with them?" For some reason Max didn't think saying she planned on killing them would be the best idea.

"Just keep outside." As if on cue the building exploded, showering the pavement with glass. Max didn't know what is was about the explosion but as the flames licked at the window frames things connected. "What's todays date?"

"What?" Sarah Jane asked looking at the silver haired teen with a critical eye, that question was generally only asked by time travellers.

"Today's date? Simple question I need I know the answer to."

"13th of July 2011. Are you a time traveller?" Sarah Jane couldn't help but ask that question.

"Not yet but I will be soon." Max grinned as she looked into the burning building. Words she knew were scrawled on a piece of paper hidden in a scroll flashed in her mind's eye.

_13th July 2011, flames, snake, blue box._

_Here's where Murdock begins._

Max turned to Itachi and grabbed him in a forceful kiss before dashing off towards the building. As an afterthought she tossed the keys to her bike at Itachi before diving through the burning window. Her partner followed her movements with a stony face, looks like she still wouldn't be getting home any time soon and this time he wouldn't be going with her.

One thing was for sure, the write up was going to take forever.

* * *

><p>As Max weaved between the burning supports, heading to where she could sense the alien, she heard a familiar sound. The TARDIS had arrived on the scene, in the middle of the burning building, right by her target. She slid around the final corner just in time to see the Doctor crouching down over the mildly charred body. The body was already dead. The parasitic snake inside it wasn't though and as with all good parasites it was just waiting for another good host body to come along. Max did not want to have to deal with a Time Lord Gouald.<p>

She could see the movement under the body's skin and legged it over. As she ran past the burning wall she used it to light up her hands. As the snake made its bid to the dual hearted body leaning over its previous host, Max slid it home, grabbing the snake with her burning hand and squeezing it while it burnt. She didn't stop running, the building was creaking and crumbling, ready to collapse around them. She grabbed the Doctor's arm and practically threw him into his blue box, diving in after and closing the door firmly behind them.

There was a crash from beyond the doors, the building had probably just collapsed around them. She would have checked but she really didn't want to open the door and had FA was not going to work in there.

"Who the hell are you?" Oh, she should probably give an explanation to the Doctor. She turned from the door, the Doctor should have seen her in this image at least once, she smirked a bit when she saw recognition cross his face. "You were in that cave. On another planet. How did you get here?"

"Magic." From the way he was looking at her he was seriously considering that was her serious answer as he then quickly dashed over to the console in the middle of the room presumably to run a scan. "Ok, no magic before you get too excited. Just some Ancient technology." Again she got a curious look and he went back to messing with the console before suddenly looking at her again, specifically her hands, which were still on fire, and still holding the half burnt corpse of a snake. She noticed she'd only slightly scorched his sleeve when she'd dragged him in.

Max extinguished her empty hand, not trusting the corpse to actually be dead.

"What is that thing?" The doctor asked, he'd donned a pair of glasses and was right up close, inspecting it. Max kept her grip and allowed the flames to die down to a flicker.

"A parasite, either with delusions of godhood or self-induced slavery."

"Seriously?"

"How have you not come across these?" Max sighed, the Doctor produced a tub from somewhere and offered it up as a container. Max carefully placed the snake thing down and let the fire flicker out. She watched as the Doctor inspected the creature more closely, even going as far as sniffing it before putting a lid on it and pushing it through what could be a letter box in the wall. He the bounced back over and looked at her, inspecting her in almost the same way.

"Big universe maybe? What's your name anyway? I know we've met and no doubt introduced ourselves but at nine hundred I forget things." Lies, they both knew it.

"Max Hakie." The Doctor frowned for a few seconds before his eyes widened to an almost impossible degree.

"The Maxine Hakie? Sannin of Konoha, Hero of Atla-" He was interrupted when Max slapped a hand over his mouth.

"Stop right there. I want to find these things out as I do them. Do not spoil it. Also, it's Max." It was a bit too late to stop the intrigue into what else would have been mentioned had he not been stopped but she could live with that.

"So…" He was staring at her still. It was a bit annoying.

"You do know the Tardis is buried in what is probably the burning remains of an apartment block." It was amusing to see the Doctor to jump around like Louise on caffeine. The thing in the centre of the console began moving up and down, signalling that they were now in flight.

The Doctor was staring at her again. It was a bit unnerving. So was the fact Max had no idea where they were going, her note had been vague to avoid all but what was vital. No spoilers.

* * *

><p>There was a gasp from the bystanders as the apartment block collapsed in on itself, there was no way anything in there could survive, not for long anyway. Itachi felt a small stab of pain in his chest, but he rationalised that Max's chakra signal had disappeared before the collapse, and it hadn't faded out as it would it she had been killed. He couldn't help but wonder why she had left this time, she had no reason to, no betrayal or almost death. She had just left again.<p>

"Aren't you worried about your friend?" Sarah Jane asked, studying Itachi's face for emotions.

"She knows what she's doing, even if she doesn't like to share it with others." There was the tiniest hint of resentment in his voice, something that wouldn't be picked up by a normal person.

"The Doctor's like that too. Do you know how she knows him?"

"One of her many hospital visits ended up on the moon." That incident had been quite widespread in the media, and from what Max had rambled on about when high on caffeine the Doctor was no stranger to that kind of thing. It had been simple to figure out this woman had probably travelled with the Doctor 'through time and space' as Max had put it. "I should probably go home." He turned to the bike Max had so kindly left behind, grateful that he was fast at learning these kinds of think, if not he always had his sharingan to help.

"Would you like a cup of tea first? You look like you could use one." Sarah Jane asked kindly. Normally Itachi would have politely decline, perhaps even added some flattery and charm but he felt a kindred spirit in the woman, someone who had been left behind.

"That would be amazing," Itachi said with a tired smile. Tea was always a calming drink for him and he could tell this woman was just curious. If Max could run around meeting strangers and making friends so could he, and he had a feeling his friend could be just as useful.

* * *

><p>Max felt like she was back in her element as the Tardis slung her occupants round the control room as they passed over a ripple in the time vortex. It had been ages since she'd been able to stretch her legs, Earth didn't quite cut it and she'd been banned from dimension hopping.<p>

Home, she wasn't sure if she could handle home anymore, she'd been afraid to say it to Itachi, he probably would have dragged her back, but home kinda scared her. There were so many bad memories associated with that place, bad things. While she knew she would be going back in this adventure, it wouldn't be her, she would be out of her timeline and all the things had already happened to her. Even she knew better than to mess with time, especially her own timeline.

The room sharply shifted again then straightened out before the lights dimmed to a dark blue. A colour that really didn't suit the interior.

"Does this usually happen?" Max asked, looking curiously at the door. She hadn't explicitly said anything about what she needed to do, but she figured the Tardis would take her there eventually.

The Doctor ignored her question and sauntered over to the door, swinging it open, letting in some blinding sunshine. Max suspected they weren't in England any more, sunlight was never _that_ bright.

"Ah, this is interesting."

That didn't sound good. In fact that sounded like how she started off most of her adventures, but they tended to be limited to one timeline, and now, one dimension.

This could be anywhere, any time. If Max knew anything about the Tardis there was trouble where she landed.

"Always wanted to meet Di Vinci."

Oh, that didn't sound too bad. Max perked up a bit, maybe this was an exception. She trailed after the Doctor and peered into the Italian sun, feeling the warmth sink to her bones. She leant out the door a bit further, eyes catching up to where the Doctor had started to wander off. She was a bit unwilling to leave the Tardis, it had a mind of its own and she couldn't read it. Her adventures always had a backup plan and a way out. Here, she had neither.

"Come on. She's not going anywhere." The Doctor called, Max reluctantly took a step out and promptly felt something hit her backside and heard the sound of the Tardis dematerialising as she stumbled over the cobbled street.

Damn.

* * *

><p>Reviews are welcomed always, especially with all the love I get from you guys, even when I have fallen of the face of everything but my Twitter.<p>

Guess the next crossover?


	5. The Creed of a Time Traveller

Not quite three months this time. Doesn't feel like it, feels like a lot longer.

The mice are dead (two bodies were found)

The F1 has started (YAY)

I've now watched all of the BBC version of Sherlock (yes there will be a crossover later. I have it planned) though waiting for the next season is annoying.

I've also just started watching Castle and will probably be watching that for my entire 3 week break. Less certain about a crossover with it.

* * *

><p>Max couldn't quite remember the events that led up to being chased around renaissance era Italy. She had a sneaking suspicion it was more the Doctors fault than hers which made a change. Apparently 900 years isn't long enough to figure out when to be subtle for Time Lords.<p>

It hadn't been too difficult to figure out why the Tardis had brought them here. A group of people known as the Templars had kidnapped Di Vinci. From what little history Max had paid attention to that was bad.

Very bad.

When they had gone to visit Di Vinci the Doctor had asked the wrong people the wrong questions and now here they were, running for their lives.

Well, more like Max dragging the Doctor faster than he could run, probably wasn't wise over the uneven streets but the quick changes in direction were preventing him from face planting. They reached a market square bustling with people minding their own business, each of the paths leading off had Templars closing in on them. While Max knew she could take to the roofs easily enough, the Doctor was a bit lacking in that department.

His arm was torn from her grasp, people filling up the gap as he was swallowed into the crowd out of sight. Max rolled her eyes and tracked his double heartbeat as she scaled the nearest building and ducked into a weird roof box thing with cloth drapes.

By her calculations he was in a cart of hay. And the Templars had given up looking for them, just going back to wandering the streets, occasionally pestering citizens.

Huh? No one gave up that easily.

"Best way to get Templars off your tail without having to pick hay out of your cloak," a voice informed her with a smirk. Max pivoted on one foot, drawing weapons as she faced the speaker. A man was crouching on the sill of the box, a hood concealing most of his face, his eyes assessing her in a way all too familiar. He was an assassin and had probably figured out what she was mostly capable of. The calculating look faded and was replaced by a charming smile.

"Ezio Auditore." The man held out a hand. Max raised an eyebrow, she knew there was a concealed blade attached to his wrist. Both wrists in fact. Both looked to be on some sort of mechanism to release them when needed. Max extended her own hand and grasped his arm in a knights handshake, making sure to put pressure in the right place to lock the mechanism of the blade. Ezio raised an eyebrow but shook anyway. In hindsight Max realise that in that era he might have gone for 'kiss a lady's hand' but she couldn't care less at this point.

"Max Hakie. I don't suppose you could take me to see the guy one of your associates just dragged into the cart of hay?" Max asked almost sheepishly, a teasing smile on her face. Ezio looked at her still smiling though she saw a hint of something flit through his eyes, recognition.

"I could, but first I have a request of my own. The man you were visiting has been taken by the Templars. It would be in both of our interests to retrieve him."

"You think I can help?"

"I know you can Maxine. So do you." That smile hard turned smug with the use of her full name. Max rolled her eyes, she wondered if the Tardis had known that Di Vinci needed finding. That implied this would not be easy. Best kind of adventure really. Easy ones were boring.

* * *

><p>It still ended up with running through the streets of somewhere in Italy after traveling to the place Di Vinci was supposedly being held. Max hadn't paid attention past 'we think he's here' and a cross on a map. She had some other assassins following her, she wasn't sure why. Possibly for help. Possibly to finish this mess if she died as a distraction. Possibly –<p>

Ah, that was a person she just ran into. Did civilians not have the sense to get out of the way of fast moving people?

Apparently not if they were trying to pick pocket her. What was the social protocol for dealing with people trying to steal from you? Stab them? Max settled for shoving them far away seconds after reclaiming what had almost gone missing.

Max had been beyond tempted to do a repeat of the Survivors and go all 'angel' on people to freak them out. Then she remembered she wasn't supposed to mess with time. It was one of the self-imposed rules that she hated to follow, but if she broke it Oma Desla would probably moan at her again and ban her from time travel as well as dimension hopping. It meant she had to do this mission the pedestrian way, no magic or chakra, not visible anyway.

She almost missed the complex they were going to be breaking into because of her thoughts.

The assassins pulled back to watch the complex from the roof of a building across the street, waiting for something. Max joined Ezio on his perch.

"Are we hoping they just decide to let Di Vinci walk out the front door or is there a plan?" she asked sarcastically, in recent times waiting wasn't something she did often.

"We now wait for the Dragon." Max considered banging her head against a wall. While she knew dragons existed, she doubted that was what they meant.

"Dragon?" Max had this sinking feeling she knew why she was here now.

"It is complicated, but just as I knew you would be here and help us somehow, I knew a great dragon of fire would turn up to aid our rescue."

So much for no chakra Max thought as a grin spread across her face. Back on her own time, on earth she couldn't use her chakra for massive things like great displays of fire.

"I think I know why I'm here. When you see the dragon do not gap at it like an idiot. Move swift." Max tilted her head slightly as if listening for something, then leapt away towards the compound, disappearing from sight the second she could.

Standing in the middle of the forecourt facing the main building, she flexed her fingers, she hadn't done anything of this magnitude in a while. She took a few deep breaths to centre herself. A dragon, or at least a good size, fully formed one, took a lot of focus and that was without the control it took if you wanted to make it move in anything but a forward direction.

From the first seal her hands moved practically on their own, remembering the movements of something that had been so well practiced in the past. She finished with an unseen flourish and brought her hand to her mouth, breathing the dragons life into the chakra. There was a huge whoosh of light and sound as the dragon emerged in all its bright fiery glory, towering over the complex, raising its head to let out a booming roar that sent vibrations through the ground.

She felt the assassins scale the walls of the complex, moving quickly towards the building, they obviously had some idea where Di Vinci was being held. At this rate the operations should be over in five, ten minutes maximum. She could hold the dragon for that long. She made it rise up high into the sky before diving straight for the main building, pulling up just in time, scorching some of the walls, some of the drapes in windows had caught fire. Max shrugged, not her division.

The dragon did some other showy maneuverers, not all of them stolen from what little Quidditch she had actually watched. She watched it twist in the sky, menacing the panicking people, loving the freedom the air gave it to move in whatever direction she wanted.

It seemed all to soon the assassins were done, Max drew the dragon up into the sky again, higher than before, then let it fall seemingly uncontrollable, freaking the people out even more, sending them running for shelter. Just before impact, the dragon disappeared, completely and suddenly. Max smirked, her work done. She did like a good distraction. It felt very freeing.

As she made her way as far from the scene as she could a smirk crossed her face. The Tardis did love joking about it seemed, as she was parked down a side alley she was just about to pass by.

Sometimes it was better to have a quiet ending, just a fade to black. Exit stage left.

Well, better than a witch hunt anyway.

* * *

><p>It came to no surprise that the Tardis was back to normal when she dashed in before it could dematerialise again. Max got the distinct feeling it was screwing around with her on purpose. Just what she needed right now.<p>

The next few stops were a bit of a blur. Ending up fighting gladiators at the Colosseum in Ancient Rome in some twisted way to prove that the doctor was innocent of something he'd done. It was strange being the one to bail someone else out of trouble. Normally it was the other way around.

After Rome they ended up in the far distant future on an almost deserted ship of the Jupiter Mining Corporation called Red Dwarf where a human, a humanoid cat, a robot, a computer AI and a hologram were trying to get home. Unfortunately home had been destroyed a while back. Not that the time-travellers told them.

Sometimes it's better to leave them some hope, the Doctor had said before they moved on again.

The Doctor seemed excited about the next destination, well more excited than usual, bouncing around the control room like she'd spiked his tea (she was not completely sure what she could spike it with to make him this bad)

As soon as the Tardis landed her had bounded over to the doors, dragging her by her arm. He them opened the doors with a flourish

"Welcome to Atlantis!" Throught he doorway Max could see the familiar walls of Atlantis, the floating city.

"I'm not sure I am welcome here," Max muttered, remembering her rude dismissal.

"No, this is back when the Ancients lived here. Not the humans in your time." The Doctor was still bouncing around, slightly put out by the less-than-impressed face Max had.

"Great I can annoy more of them. Two of them already hate me in the future."

"I'm sure that's not true."

"No, I distinctly remember Oma Desla saying 'I hate you' when we met. Chaya, well nothing says 'I hate you' more than binding half my chakra. If I see here I'll be sure to punch her again."

"Well that's all in the future now, none of them know that they hate you."

"That's strangely not reassuring." The Doctor looked like he was about to say something but they were interrupted by some light coughing. They had an audience of adults in robes. At least they looked better than wizard robes.

"Now is not the best time to seek sanctuary here Time Lord. We have our own enemies to face." Max took a wild guess and assumed the Wraith were the 'enemy'. She expanded her senses as far as she could. No wraith in the city at least. It was about then she noticed the attention had shifted to her.

"Whatever it is, I didn't do it."

"You are from the future." There was no question in that statement, the person was just showing off. It was a trait most Ancients seemed to possess, Max would probably never admit it but she also did that a lot.

"You are a descendant of Morgana." There were probably a number of sarcastic remarks Max could have made. Instead she was herded to a room not far from the control room with any of her questions being ignored. The Doctor trailed along behind, not quite used to being ignored like this.

"Morgan-"

"I know, she has my blood. I wish to talk to her alone." That was never a good thing to hear. The door shut behind her, leaving the two distant relatives alone in the room.

What was said in that room would never be clear. Neither of them mentioned what they had talked about but both of them seemed changed, just a bit.

For Morgana, her time was set in stone, the talk would not be able to change much.

For Max, her future was still being made, she just needed to be willing to point it in the direction it needed to go, even if it deviated from where she wanted it to go.

* * *

><p>Writing Assassins Creed is hard when I've only seen it being played. I'm crap at console games and last time I played I kept walking off buildings.<p>

It will probably be a few chapters before Max gets back to Konoha but when she does... Well, I doubt anyone can guess what I have planned.

Reviews are lovely to read.


	6. Hero of Atlantis

Changed the crossover category to Doctor who and Naruto to more accurately represent this story at the moment.

I didn't die or anything in the last two months. First my inspiration went on holiday, then I had exams to revise for and I now have full time work to deal with. I actually have a kind of awesome job, it will take up most of my time and energy for the next four moths though. I will write when I can.

My blog is more often updated (with Formula1 stuff too), but again less due to work and lack of living with my uni housemates for summer. Check it out: Tumblr. JustAddCaffeine. com (minus spaces naturally)

There's also my twitter which is linked from my blog. I'm not adverse to talking to people on either.

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><p>Time is a funny thing. For most people it appears a strictly linear progression of cause to effect, all running at the same rate for everyone.<p>

The second you step into another point in time this no longer applies to you, the longer you spend traveling to different points in time, the less linear it becomes until it is a jumbled mess of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff.

Even with the many times people 'invented' time travel it never lasted long. Time is can be fragile in places, but resistance to change in others. Sometimes all it takes is stepping on a butterfly to cause a chain reaction that can alter the future that you know. It's very easy to alter the past to a point a time travelling machine never gets invented.

Max knew all of this. The idea had caught her interest for a while back in her old dimension. For a while, she, Laura and Louise would spend their lunch break picking something to change in time then imagining how it would change the present.

When Ducky gave her the crate with a note in it, her own note, she knew she would end up time traveling, she'd started a loop in the future that ended right there in the past which would end up starting the loop to ensure the events in the future happen.

Everything Max was doing had already been done at least once before by the version of her that wrote that note. Everything that was said had been said before. That is why, in the Time Lord history books, she was known as the hero of Atlantis before she even knew she would earn that title.

The Doctor had no idea that he would see her gain that title.

* * *

><p>The Wraith had managed to get a few darts through to the city, under the radar of the Ancient systems. A few teams of the space vampires had been beamed down in various places throughout the city.<p>

They all had the same destination. The control room.

Max was the first alerted to their presence in the city having been pulsing FA every few minutes searching for anything that wasn't there before. She'd passed on the information to the Ancients. The Wraith boarding the city coincided with all internal sensors going offline.

From what Max knew of the Ancients, which admittedly wasn't a lot, short range weapons weren't really their thing. They seem to rely on the drone and other long range weapons to defend themselves, assuming that no one could get close with them. The looks of panic on the people faces were so far confirming that assumption.

Hopefully someone would figure out even just a temporary defence. To do that they needed time to work, like with McKay. To have that time they needed someone to slow or stop the invading force.

Time to stretch her powers and make up for the lack of use in recent times. Max stretched her limbs and made a few clones. She would take on the larger group of Wraith while her clones took out the others and some stayed back just in case. She flicked off a lazy salute before speeding off, apparating mid step through doors. She needed to get the adrenaline, magic and chakra flowing after only occasional use for so long.

She stopped with a door between her and the squad of Wraith and took the time to unseal her scythe. She ran her hands along the blade, checking its sharpness. Using modern weapons would be a bad idea. Though technically at this point in time she hadn't signed the contract for either her guns or the wolves, she didn't want to try it with so little time.

The door in front of her opened and the first few Wraith poured through only to get hit by a small cluster of fireballs. They hadn't been expecting anyone to be waiting for them. In the resulting confusion Max leapt into the group, slicing through the space vampires in her graceful dance.

It seemed incredible timing that just as the last one crumpled to the floor, now slick with blood, a loud rock song blared from her pocket. Only one person knew she could be contacted right now and that was the doctor. She fished it out of her pocket, ignoring the miscellaneous weapons that fell out in the process. That actually explained some of the random cuts on her hand that she'd been finding recently. She flipped the phone open, silencing the ring tone as she answered it.

"Yello'." She greeted, sealing her scythe back into its scroll. It would need cleaning at some point.

"Internal sensors are back up, internal communications are still down." Ok, so not the doctor. That was Morgana, someone who knew what she needed to know. "The area around you is clear now. Other areas are being cleared. There is a wraith dart circling the south pier." Nothing more was needed to be said.

"On my way." Max confirmed and ended the call, switching it to silent before stuffing it back into her pocket. It was a small miracle it still worked with all the scratches and chunks missing.

Taking the nearest route to outside Max shushined across the gaps that spread out the arms of the city. Inside would be slower and more convoluted. Apperating just wasn't a good idea over a long distance in this city. She spotted the mentioned dart and dived for the nose of it, only at some point mid-flight realising that was probably a dumb idea. Still, she grabbed the tip of it, using her momentum and some chakra to send it into a dive, letting go of it just before it smashed into one of the towers on the south pier. Max hoped there wasn't anything important there.

She clung to the side of the tower, working out the easiest balcony to get to. Her clones, all maxed out on chakra usage, all dissipated, sending memories back to her. The influx of information shifted her focus from staying attached to the wall and in an almost comical way she looked down as the ground suddenly seemed to grow closer.

* * *

><p>A balcony managed to save her from dropping the full distance to the water level. Max rolled onto her side, winded from impact. She could feel her ribs protesting the movement, it was possible some were at least fractured if not a few broken ones too.<p>

"Note to self – Falling is nice. Hitting the ground, not so much." Max muttered and she hauled herself up to a standing position. She could feel blood running down the side of her face. Her natural instinct of reinforcing her body with chakra had saved her from too much damage, mostly absorbing the momentum. It didn't stop all injuries but it could have been worse.

"You are no Atlantean."

Now it was worse. Max could feel the back of a weapon pressed to the back of her neck. She wondered why she hadn't just been shot. It would have just been easier for whoever it was.

"Turn around slowly." Max might have admitted she was a bit curious to see who it was and so complied. Ah, a Wraith. Nice. Finger on the trigger ready, not really many ways out of this, not after that fall. She could feel her actions being sluggish. The Wraith moved towards her, Max moved back, trying to keep some distance until she felt the balcony wall preventing her from moving any further. "Feel free to panic. It makes this so much better."

Max didn't have a chance to ask what before a hand was pressed to her chest and pain blossomed from that area, her chakra draining at an alarming rate. Instinctual panic flooded her mind, followed by a howling from her tenant. She had to stop this now, she couldn't move though. She tried to pull her chakra back and succeeded for a while, confusing the wraith who pressed the weapon harder against her, reminding her it was still there. The very real possibility that she would die here came to mind but was quickly shoved away. She had other things to do, that had already been done, she got out of this situation alive. There was the time loop to finish. How to get out of this though?

It seemed like her thoughts were moving at the speed of light. Then a curious idea came to mind. Reaching for the magic she still had Max started shifting her form, forcing it to speed up. Her skin rippled as it took on an almost skeletal humanoid-canine form, fur stretched tight over bones. Glowing eyes looked down on the Wraith, this form added a lot of height. Tatty wings flared out, casting a shadow over the slightly panicked enemy. Panicked was not good though. A few energy blasts passed harmlessly through her animagus form. As a last ditch attack the Wraith continued to try to suck out her energy.

Something seemed to snap and the wraith was blasted back and Max's already pained head gained another sharp pain just behind her eyes. From then everything went black as she passed out.

* * *

><p>Waking up in a healing environment was never a pleasant experience. It didn't matter where or when you were, there would always be something about the atmosphere that made it uncomfortable and irritating.<p>

The second thing Max noticed was the lack of vision. Suppressing panic, Max reached up to her head, hoping there was a good reason. She let out a breath of relief when she found cloth covering her eyes. It was slightly damp with something fragrant but that was all Max could tell.

"Your eyesight should be fine in a few days." Morgana again. "This is not a permanent fix, it is unknown what caused damage to your eyes. Healers have done what they are able. It's the best we could do after you prevented the Wraith from succeeding and crippling one of their ships."

That was new.

"Crippled a ship?" It felt weird making facial expressions with her eyes covered like this. Even with FA on full it wasn't this bad.

"The wraith that beamed down from the dart you crashed was later collected before we could stop it. Later the ship it returned to exploded. We registered a large release of power similar to that we register from you."

"Nice."

"You're being honoured as a hero. You already know that though." Max nodded, there was no point lying to her ancestor.

* * *

><p>A week later Max was finally released from the healing room, but only after having escaped anytime Wraith tried to get into the city. She'd had to work relying on FA the entire time. It had been tiring her out. It had never been meant for long term usage, only for battles, so to compensate she cut it down to bursts every so often when there was no apparent danger and clones patrolling.<p>

The Doctor often sat with her, talking to her. He was a bit in awe of her gaining that title even if it hadn't been in the peaceful way he had probably hoped for. He also seemed anxious to leave. Max couldn't blame him, he was much like her, not liking the feeling of being stuck, but he couldn't leave her behind. It was much relief to the both of them when Max was allowed to leave, the bandages removed and a final session with an ancient healing device done.

It had taken a while for Max to adjust to seeing with her eyes again, the colours all seemed much brighter than before, everything in full clear focus. Almost overwhelming, as if she had been seeing through a cloudy window before.

Just before they got to the Tardis Morgana appeared, smiling secretively, and offered a small vial to Max. "You'll know what to do with this." Max eyes the glass container with a bit of scepticism, she couldn't help but remember the last time she was offered one. She'd ended up missing her episodic memories and only got them back after injuring Itachi.

It appeared that most trips in the Tardis with Max would not end up as a nice ride. It was nice to not be thrown around the console room, but being pinned to a wall by extreme g-forces was not nice. The Tardis was supposed to compensate for most of it but Max had a sinking feeling that the space ship wasn't in that much control anymore. They were being dragged through space with no idea of their destination and not way of escaping the pull.

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><p>The next few crossovers are all planned out, as is the story for a while. Feel free to suggest some ideas, I may not be able to add it in, I only have limited recreational time for the next 4 months, but I will try.<p>

Reviews are loved like a plushie companion cube (if you want to get me one of those instead...)


	7. For Asgard!

It hasn't been a month!

Despite full time work I actually got writing done. Took a weekend and some AC/DC but I did it.

I also actually have a plan for the next bunch of chapters, a semi solid plot. I haven't had one of those for a while.

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><p>There was an eerie silence when the Tardis finally stopped moving. Max picked herself up from the floor, wincing slightly. The landing had not been gentle. Next to her the Doctor groaned having received the same treatment. It wouldn't have been so bad for Max but the Tardis didn't like chakra being used inside her so sticking to the wall was a no-go.<p>

"I wonder what's gotten into her lately," the Time Lord mused, poking around the console. Max just grumbled, she was not used to being treated roughly by a sentient ship. "We'll let's see where we are then." He grabbed his long coat and headed for the door, Max following reluctantly, last time this had happened she'd seen more of renaissance Italy than she'd ever planned to see. Curiosity got the better of her though as she peered out through the blinding light streaming in.

"Well that's interesting." Max felt a bubble of mirth rise up. At about knee level in the doorway there was a weird ledge that had thin lines of colour pulsing through a dark solid block of something. "You park worse than I do," Max commented, stepping up onto the path and looking around. It was indeed a path, to her right was what could have passed for a slightly weird looking observatory.

To her left, a huge city that gleamed golden, surrounded by clouds as if it was just floating in space. The architecture reminded Max of a pipe organ, if it weren't for the warm colours Max would have assumed it was of Ancient construction. They liked stuff like this.

"Come on, let's meet the locals and try to get the Tardis out." The doctor was already well on his way to the city. Max glanced at the Tardis, it looked like the police box just sunk into the ground. It was a bit out of place with the background of space. Max's eyes widened when she processed what she was seeing. Sure she'd been in space before, when she was at Atlantis in her own time. That didn't even hold a candle to the beauty she could see.

All of a sudden she became very aware of the fact nothing would stop her from falling if someone pushed her over the side, there was no place to hide or defend from. She didn't even know how there was air or pressure where she was standing. If she fell then how far would she get before there was neither?

She felt vulnerable and she didn't like it. Exploring the path beneath her with chakra worried her more. Her chakra wouldn't stick to it, the energy got lost in whatever the path was made of.

The doctor looked back to her, he'd managed to get halfway to the city, too lost in the sight to remember he did have a companion at the moment. He motioned for her to follow, gesturing with his arms to be seen over that distance. Max steeled her mind, dragging her overactive imagination to a halt and began walking towards the city, carefully putting one foot in front of the other.

"When are we?" Max asked when she finally caught up with the doctor, her confidence on the path was a lot better but she still was nervous.

"If I remember my astronomy history, I'd say the fifth Earth century."

"But we aren't on earth."

"Of course not. This is Asgard." It was probably the way he had said it, as if it was common knowledge, that irritated Max.

"Of course, how silly of me to have not known that. Oh how I wish that I had your expansive knowledge of all things. I should bow to your superior intellect, I doth my hat to you good sir," Max snarked sarcastically, mimicking raising a hat.

"Stop that," the doctor scowled, feeling the mocking from Max.

"What?" Max asked innocently.

"You know what." Max couldn't help but grin feeling much better.

"Who goes there?" Lost in their banter, neither Max nor the doctor had noticed they had reached the gates. A man in golden amour stood like a statue blocking the path. The doctor quickly placed his hand over Max's mouth the second he saw her go to speak.

"Is Odin around?" The doctor asked as if he was just calling round a friend's house. Max rolled her eyes, nothing she would have said would have been that bad.

"Who asks?" The doctor glanced at Max who shrugged, her mouth still covered.

"I'm the Doctor of Gallifrey and this is my companion Maxine Hakie, Hero of Atlantis." Max quickly did some mental maths to figure out whether that had actually happened in the normal time progression, it didn't get her far so she gave up and hoped the doctor knew what he was on about.

"You may enter. Be warned, no tricks will be tolerated." For once Max wasn't sure if that was directed at her, the doctor did have his own reputation as a trickster, it did seem to span more of space and time than her own reputation. At least the doctor had finally moved his hand.

The two of them entered the great city, heading straight to the large structures that stood tall above all others.

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><p>It didn't take long after meeting Odin to find out why the Tardis was stuck in a road. The Bifrost, as it was called, had only just been made as a way of travelling between the nine realms. It had taken a huge amount of energy and had managed to drag in other things to strengthen it. Like the Tardis as she was travelling past that point in time.<p>

The bad news was that it would not be an easy fix, if it could be fixed at all. Max had no doubt it would be, she had places to be and had to get there somehow. Her time loop had yet to be completed.

What was even worse, Max was being ignored due to her gender, sometimes she noticed looks of disapproval whenever she spoke. Sometimes she didn't even have to speak, her strong warrior stance seemed to offend some of them, even her style of dress got her muttered comments.

The unspoken disproval came to a point when one warrior gained the courage to demand what right she had to be at an assembly of men. Odin had yet to arrive, he was fine with her presence so the warrior would not have dared say anything in his presence. Max was tempted to give a speech on the positioning of her reproductive organ in relation to her body, but Sam Carter of SG1 had already done that before.

"You want to know why I'm here? Because I chose to be and attempts to throw me out will not be appreciated, or end well for you," Max hissed. The warriors assembled in the room laughed. Max rolled her eyes.

"Is that a challenge?" The warrior asked. Max smirked, of course it was, she had been meaning to compare her strength to these so called gods.

"Try it." The surrounding men backed away to form an informal arena around them. Max wondered if these things happened often, then she wondered exactly how much fun this would be. The warrior drew his sword and held it up. Max shifted to her beginning stance.

"You fight with no weapons?"

"I fight with an advantage." Max shrugged, if he didn't know what she fought with then he would have to guess until she revealed it. That was assuming she bothered with a weapon. The sword had a long reach but wasn't great if they got up close and personal, dodging past the blade, something she had quite a bit of experience with.

"A cowardly way." The mocking tone was probably meant to goad her into making a mistake. Unfortunately Max had been fighting her own way long enough to be confident in it. Insulting her style was not going to make her do anything unplanned.

"I can read exactly what you're going to do from how you are standing, how you hold your sword and where you're looking. Fancy actually doing it or are you all talk and no action?"

Taunting the man worked, he charged at her, as she predicted, and tried to slash at her, aiming to scare but not badly injure. Max easily ducked under the blade gaining the advantage as she faced her opponent who had only just figured out what had happened.

From then the fight was horribly onesided, Max using all her training to drag it out and thoroughly beat the warrior. Her speed and chakra enhanced strength gave her the power to level the otherwise unbalanced playing field. Her brutality might have pushed it a bit. She ended it with the warrior pinned to the floor, her knee digging into his spine and a nasty looking blade by his throat.

"Impressive display, Hero of Atlantis." All eyes turned to see Odin standing in front of his throne. "She is welcome amongst us. Do not challenge her again." Max couldn't help but wonder if any of them were willing anymore.

"The Frost Giants have moved to take Midguard. We will protect the midguardians as we have always done." Hushed whispers rose from the Asgardians. Odin approached Max. "It would be an honour for the Hero of Atlantis to fight by our side."

"It would be my pleasure to join you in glorious battle." This would be fun. The battlefield called her name like a lover.

* * *

><p>Her chakra was singing with joy as she smashed through frost giants. This was her home planet, she would protect it as if it were Konoha. All around her the frost giants clashed with Asgardians. Max tried to avoid stealing someone else's kill, they got very touchy about that, especially with her. Honour and all that.<p>

She was there when Odin broke through to the inner sanctum. The shrill cry of a child broke through the noise of battle. Keeping her eyes peeled she followed Odin to the source of the cry. A small smile tugged at her lips when she saw a small baby watching them, the cry had been to get their attention. Intelligent thing, bit small for a frost giants offspring. Max guess that, with it being so hidden, it was either a runt or not fully frost giant. Neither option would give the child a good life. Odin seemed to know this as he picked up the infant, he turned to her.

"Tell no one of this. As of now he is my child." He commanded, the child slowly taking on a more human appearance until he could pass as a human infant. Max said nothing, not even to remind him she did not take his orders. She would make no promises other than to safeguard the welfare of the child whenever she was in Asgard. Her knowledge of Norse mythology was not as in-depth as that of her Greek mythology but she knew of this kid. Loki, God of mischief. If there was something she knew well it was mischief.

* * *

><p>With the battle won, the return to Asgard was full of triumph and jubilations. A huge feast was prepared and lasted three days. It was only because the mead was so potent that Max managed to stay awake for the whole thing, she couldn't remember that last time she had drunk that much. She had tried to limit the damage but only partially succeeded. In all honesty she would have escaped had she not been invited to sit by Odin, he would notice if she left, and probably be offended. Until she left Asgard she wanted to manage without doing that.<p>

A few times she did slip out, leaving a clone in place knowing it would not stand under scrutiny, to visit baby Loki. The baby actually fascinated her, it watched her with intelligent eyes and stayed calm in her arms, if anyone else tried to pick him up there would be screaming Max was sure could be heard in the main hall.

Max had never been a kid person by nature. Loki was different. He would be amazing, she was sure of that. So she talked to him, letting her mind ramble on, not caring that he probably didn't understand what she was saying.

* * *

><p>It was two days after the feast that the doctor found her, watching over Loki as she reading a book she had found somewhere, with the news he had probably fixed the Tardis. Max immediately looked the kid, she was tempted to take him with her but she doubted she would make it to the Tardis. The Bifrost destabilized all of her magic and chakra, its energy interfering with her own.<p>

"We'll visit him again, I promise." That convinced her enough to leave, she knew it wasn't completely up to him, it depended on the Tardis. But the promise gave her some hope. She dropped a light kiss to Loki's forehead, hoping this wasn't the last time she would see the child.

The farewell was quite formal, warriors saluting to her as she made her way to the Tardis with the doctor. The interior looked back to normal again, but that hadn't lasted before, Max would wait until they reached their next destination to assume it had worked.

The now familiar sound of the Tardis taking off filled the control room, followed by some jerking around, not a good sign. A horrible squealing sound cut of the usual sound and the lights went out again.

"You should really get her serviced." Max said dusting herself down after another unpleasant landing. She walked over to the door and opened it, this action was closely followed by the sound of her hand hitting her forehead.

To her left Asgard shone just as brightly as she had last seen it.

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><p>Seriously, plushie companion cube would be adored. I guess I could love reviews instead.<p> 


	8. Babysitting Gods?

Long wait I know, but work and stuff keeps me busy. I spend most of my free time sleeping or tired.

You won't have to wait much for the next chapter. It's already written, technically part of this chapter but it was too long combined so I split it.

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><p>Of course the Doctor was insisting it should have worked, no one admitted they knew their idea wasn't going to work unless it was going to end up in the death of someone and you wanted to keep them hopeful.<p>

"My calculations were perfect. I don't understand." The Doctor was looking on the verge of a breakdown, he was not used to something like that not working. Max figured she should actually help rather than sit on the step of Bifrost in front of the Tardis door and wait for an Asgardian to notice they were back. Then at least they would have more of an idea of when they were.

"You're assuming the Bifrost agrees with your logic. Maybe it works differently to how you thought it would and so it didn't react in the way you predicted, thus your calculations would be a little skewed because you're using the wrong one for the situation." There was a silent pause and Max looked up, grinning slightly when she saw the look on the Doctor's face.

"How did you figure that?" The look of shock people had when she said something intelligent, or at least plausible, would never not be funny.

"Magic."

"You should stop using that as your answer to everything when you can actually do magic and know that it's not how you did it," the Doctor mused as he practically bounced over to the console to attempt to reconfigure his Bifrost escape program.

It took a few minutes for Heimdall to knock on the side of the box. Max stood up to face the god, looking to see if there were any others around. It wasn't easy to guess the passage of time from a race of people who aged at a different rate to what she was used to. Heimdall didn't look like he had ages a second.

"Odin requests your audience in the Great Hall."

"Did he say please?" Max smirked a bit when she heard the Doctor facepalm behind her, followed by the sound of his head banging against the console.

"He did not, but I can assure you someone else is waiting, even if he doesn't know it yet." Max tilted her head in confusion at the vagueness. Loki came to mind, but why would he remember her. He had been a baby and if he remembered that then he would remember the Frost Giant stuff.

"You go ahead I want to figure this out." The Doctor made shooing motions with his hands, impatient to get back to work.

"Want me to go to the movies after, give you longer alone time?" Max asked sarcastically, there was no bite behind her words. "Just remember if you leave me here then time is screwed," and he was left with a slammed door.

Outside Max noticed horses waiting. They had not been there when she first looked out, nor when Heimdall got her.

Max could ride a horse, it had been part of training second time around, she'd been shown a few ways. All of them had been on a horse that she could see over the top of.

This horse she could walk under without her hair even brushing its stomach. Max knew she was a bit short for her age, she made up for it by not staying still long enough for someone to notice. But now she was faced with a horse that she would need help to mount.

She was a Sannin. She did not ask for help, she didn't even like accepting offered help.

After eying the horse for a long time Max turned to Heimdall who looked like he was about to offer a hand.

"I'll walk." There was no discussing it as she began to walk towards the city. The horse followed her, nosing at her hair on occasion if she let it get close enough. Max eventually noticed it was on one side of her with Heimdall leading the other horse on the other side. She was being escorted by horses and a god.

At least they didn't follow her all the way to the great hall. Waiting for her inside, Odin sat in his throne looking down, Frigga stood on his left, a child sized Thor on his right, Loki standing just behind his not-brother.

"Thor, Loki, this is the Silfr Freki. She is an honoured friend and warrior. She participated in the Great Frost giant war." Thor immediately lit up and took a step forward towards her, a gesture from Odin stopping him.

"You killed Frost Giants?" the child asked excitedly. "When I am king I will slay them all." Max repressed all of her natural instincts to sigh and shake her head.

"I'm sure you will achieve many things as king," she declared diplomatically. She saw Loki's face fall minutely. "Just as I'm sure your brother will achieve great things," she added on. She saw a flicker of confusion on his face before a small smile tugged at his mouth, he'd seen into her wording.

"You're arrival is unexpected but comes and an ideal time. Myself and Frigga are embarking on a diplomatic envoy to Niflheim. It has been too long since we have extended our hand to the other realms. I fear the mischief my sons would get up to without a watchful eye."

Babysitting in fancy words.

"It would be an honour." Lies, well, half a lie. She did want to look after Loki. Thor seemed to possess the worst traits from Naruto and Sasuke when they were kids.

* * *

><p>She ended up sitting with the two boys listening intently to her (partially fictional) adventures. She kept mostly to the truth, omitting details, she was curious as to Loki's ability to pick out lies.<p>

"You defeated a dragon?" Thor was easily amused, and oblivious to the fact Loki was smirking. Max noticed and figured he had picked apart her story and found the fiction. She gave him a slight nod as an acknowledgement that she had been caught. Loki practically beamed with pride, before shifting back to his stoic self.

A bit later Thor looked to be getting restless sitting still for so long so Max suggested she show them some of the battles. The gasps of awe of from them when she created a clone made her smile, the clone changed appearance to Mu, making it easy for the boys to follow. She made most of the fight up as she moved, showing off and keeping the boys entranced by the movements between her and her clone. She finished it off with an overly theatrical kill just as it seemed she was losing and the two boys clapped gushing with praise. Max couldn't help but notice Loki was trying not to get caught examining her clone. She left it in existence for him while she sniggered at Thor trying to mimic the fight.

She felt a tugging on her arm and little Loki pointed at the clone, his eyes shining with the need for knowledge.

"How did you do that?"

"Magic."

"Magic is for sissies and cowards." Thor piped up in what seemed like an automatic response.

"Yet I use it and am called a legend. Think about your words before you speak them. Go find Heimdall and stand by him until I fetch you. Use that time to contemplate your actions." Thor stomped out of the room.

"You want to learn how to change your appearance like I did with that, maybe after I'll show you how to make one?" Max asked with a triumphant grin, gesturing to her clone. Loki's face lit up and he nodded almost violently. Max figured she should build him up to the clone, she wasn't even sure if it would work with his type of magic.

* * *

><p>The visit didn't last much longer than Odin's diplomatic trip, the Doctor had declared the problem fixed and ignored Max's grumbling of "that's what you said last time". So they were heading back to the Tardis, Max was wondering how easy it would be to get two pintsized gods to let go of her. It was probably an amusing sight, two small kids holding onto her arms and trying to stop her from leaving.<p>

There was a small feeling in her gut that she would be back again. They said their farewells, and managed to pry the two boys away long enough to get into the Tardis. She managed that, but didn't quite manage to get the door shut in time. Loki managed to slip past and dive in Max shook her head trying to hide the grin as the child tried to drag her out. She crouched down to his level.

"I will be back. Keep practicing and you can show me how well you can transform when I visit again." She pulled him in for a hug.

"You promise?" Max's smile faltered a bit, she knew she couldn't guarantee she would be back. She hoped that feeling in her gut was right.

"I promise," she whispered, she kissed his forehead and directed him to the door before he noticed where he was. If he saw the inside of the Tardis he would want to know everything about it and leaving would take longer.

"I really have a problem," Max grumbled rolling her eyes as she leant against the now closed door. "Every time I got sent on a mission I got told to stop making friends with kids and bringing them home."

"You say that like it's a bad thing, you help people." The Doctor said, bouncing around the console, fiddling with every button, switch and dial he came across

"I haven't always, I think I've destroyed more than I've saved." Before the Doctor could reply the Tardis lurched sending them both into the rail that surrounded the central console. For some strange reason G-forces were keeping them pressed up against the metal bars as the Tardis tried to escape the Bifrost.

There was a snapping sound and the console sparked. The G-forces suddenly lifted. Max and the Doctor pried themselves from the bars. They were taken by complete surprise when everything shifted and they were catapulted to the other side of the control room. The Tardis had tried to get out but the power had glitched allowing the Bifrost to pull them back in, like a rubber band that had been stretched then released.

Or at least that was Max's theory when she saw Asgard when she opened the doors again.

"I wouldn't mind your space ship shaking me around like a squirrel on pop rocks if we actually got somewhere else." Max grumbled stepping outside and leaning on the Tardis while she reoriented herself.

"Just go occupy yourself while I fix this." Max shrugged and sauntered off down the Bifrost. She idly wondered if the Doctor could at least park closer to the city next time. She felt a mild vibration through her feet and looked up to the city. Nothing strange. A thought struck her and she pivoted and saw the Bifrost activated.

The vibration wasn't coming from that direction, she turned again, this time looking at the bridge and saw Heimdall riding full pelt down towards her. Moving out of the way to avoid him and allow him a clear path turned out to be useless as she felt herself lifted off her feet as he passed and pulled onto the back of the horse, still galloping down the rainbow bridge. Not Max's favourite way to travel.

Inside the departure room a spear looked hastily jammed into the slot that activated the Bifrost. It was probably the reason for such hast, Max had a feeling she knew what was wrong.

"Go. I cannot leave Asgard unprotected." Max had the strangest feeling she wasn't being given a choice in this. She'd been having a lot of feelings like that.

The room started spinning and Max had to close her eyes to stop herself from trying to focus on it. She felt a gentle tugging sensation, gradually building up until she was pulled backwards and thrown across space on the Bifrost.

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><p>The next chapter will also be Thor based but after that it will more on to the main plotline. Possibly.<p>

Unless I get distracted.

Review my lovely readers. I like knowing what people think of my creations.

(The next chapter may make you cry)


	9. You may be a God, but I am a Legend

Pay attention. Stuff happens in this chapter.

Don't blink.

Blink and you'll miss it.

Blink and you're dead.

(Ok, maybe not. I should just stop quoting stuff)

So, work has been keeping me from this, but I have just over a week left of it and then back to University. Been helping train my replacement. Kinda fun.

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><p>A crumpled heap was how she landed, not the most graceful of ways. She got up quickly and dusted herself down, looking around to see if anyone noticed. The area seemed deserted, though jungles made very good camouflage. Max let her senses feel out the surroundings. There was some life around. It took a few seconds for Max to filter out the indigenous wildlife and find what she'd figured she'd been sent to do.<p>

Five Asgardian children being chased by several large creatures. Not good.

Max set off at a fast pace, building up her speed as she got used to the terrain. She had a feeling this little trip was Thor's idea. Quite possibly he was leading the group as they headed towards a cliff. Heimdall had picked her up at the right time, this would cut it close. She came into visual range of them just as they noticed the floor drop away and skidded to a stop, turning to face the creatures pursuing them with terror painted clearly across their faces. Thor shoved Loki forward causing him to stumble and fall.

"Do some of your sissy magic and make them stop!" The other four were trying to hide behind each other as if it would help. Loki clambered to his feet and looked his hands. Max doubted he would know anything that would help. Max leapt the final distance, landing between the group and the approaching creatures. Her hands flipped through the signs necessary for an Earth jutsu and she pulled up walls of dirt either side of the group, coming to a point in front of her, to direct the beasts away. There were a couple of faint splashes as the creatures hit the water at the bottom of the cliff.

"Silfr Freki?" Max heard a timid voice ask from behind her. She turned to them, all of them looking a little shocked and awed.

Her ears pricked up as something pinged on her FA radar. She turned back to her walls only to see a larger creature of the same species smash through her barrier. Using her momentum, she charged up her arm and fist with chakra and grabbed its head as it got close enough using her momentum and power against its. It was obvious who won as she forced the beast's skull down its back, feeling most of the spinal column popping out of place from the force applied on it.

There was silence as the animal's momentum finally dissipated and the corpse dropped to the floor in an odd distorted mess.

Max inspected it curiously. She wondered if ripping its head off as a trophy would traumatise them. She almost wanted to give Loki its brain and remind him it's more intelligent than Thor. She settled for snapping off its horns. She hoped the smell wasn't coming from the horns. Or the children for that matter.

Then she froze, realising she had no idea how she was supposed to get back to Asgard. She looked at the children, hoping they couldn't see her sheepish look. They still all looked a bit shell shocked.

It was only a few minutes later Max felt the weird tugging sensation as they were all pulled back to Asgard. A deceptively calm Frigga was waiting for them. Max wondered where Odin was but figured she probably wouldn't get a straight answer. She followed them back to the city, only to get pulled into the Tardis as she passed.

"I've fixed it."

"I'll believe that when we aren't here." Max snarked, perching on the railings ready to watch the next attempt. The Doctor ran around the console, fiddling with bits, the room shuddered, becoming more and more violent before suddenly stopping.

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><p>Max looked up curiously after a few seconds, the feeling of something bad happening burned at her gut. She rushed to the door and pulled it open. No big surprise she could still see Asgard. She looked to the grand city and saw no movement, there was no sound. No Heimdall on watch.<p>

Bad.

Max sprinted down the Bifrost, not even letting the Doctor know where she was going. Not that there was anywhere else she could go. People crowded in the palace, forming an almost impenetrable barrier to the great hall.

Max climbed up to the next floor and burst out onto the balcony. It seemed that the entire population of Asgard was present. Looking to the dais Max could see why, her eyes widening in horror. Thor and Loki had grown since she had last been here. They now looked to be mid to late teens. Thor had bulked out in muscle, which he was using to pin his brother, who had remained lanky, to the floor.

That wasn't the worst part. Max's excellent vision picked out the tiny glint of metal, which she realised was a needle, as Thor pushed it through Loki's lips, sewing them together.

Max inadvertently let out a strangled growl as she leapt from the balcony, fully intent on stopping this. She was intercepted by a hammer smacking into her stomach. Thor had been granted Mjolnir then.

The second she hit the floor she was dogpiled by guards. She tried to push them off but they kept dragging her back down, keeping her away from the dais, but not hiding the torture being forced upon Loki. She could see the pain in his eyes, the screaming he wanted to do.

Max managed to wriggle an arm free and reached out for Loki, trying to get her magic to form into something useful and help him. She felt something clip around her neck and trying to use her magic now felt like trying to force a brick through a sieve. It was then she noticed a black binding around Loki's neck, presumably doing the same thing.

She kept up her fruitless struggling, refusing to give up while this was happening. She ignored the armour digging into her back, the spears jabbing at her, scratching her unprotected skin, drawing blood as she tried to free herself. All that mattered was getting to Loki.

After what seemed like hours Thor drew back, his job done. Black lines of thread pulled Loki's lips together, blood dripping from the tiny holes. His eyes were still screaming out, glistening with tears that he was trying to keep back.

It was when a single tear escaped Max snapped. Her vision tinted red as a maniacal grin spread across her face, a pale mist started to form around her body. The thing around her neck started to crack, spider like lines forming until the whole thing was covered.

"Boom," Max whispered. The collar exploded outwards, raining small shards over the guards who had pinned her down. She stood up with ease, as if the guards were little more than plastic toys tumbling to the ground.

"Tell me why I shouldn't destroy this place," Max asked in a mockingly innocent voice. She walked over to Loki and helped him to his feet. Looking at him, at his pain filled eyes she repeated her question. "Tell me if I shouldn't let this place burn, have these people scream and beg for mercy." She placed a hand on his cheek, wiping away the tear that had triggered this. Her fingers moved and traced the black thread, probing them to see how easily they could be removed.

No one else in the hall had moved, her pale aura sending out waves of fear that engulfed them. Flashbacks to ANBU and the Kumar clan interrupted her vision. Images of Yuri, stood in place of Loki who was really there.

"I will not fail you." Tendrils of the mist formed from her fingertips and reached out to the thread, carefully removing it. She smeared the blood as she tried to wipe it away.

In the corner of her eye she saw the Doctor looking a bit stunned, but the second he knew he had her attention he beckoned her and pointed to his wrist where a watch might sit.

"Let this be known Asgardians. Loki is under my protection. If he is to be punished then it will be by my hand. If you disregard this then I will not restrain myself as I have done this time." She turned to Frigga as an afterthought. "Thor could do with some sewing lessons." With this she pressed a kiss to Loki's forehead, slipping him a scroll with some more ninja techniques, and then walked out, the crowds parting to give her a wide berth.

The Doctor didn't bother asking why Max had done that, in fact he was silent the entire way to the Tardis. It was only after they got in he handed her what looked like a glob of jelly and asked her to discharge her energy into it, that he said anything. Max frowned a bit and obliged, feeling strongly light afterwards. Her mind refused to think about what had just happened.

* * *

><p>It isn't until the Doctor swore after another failed attempt at escaping that Max managed to even focus on anything. There's only the slightest step up now, each attempt pulling them further out of the Bifrost.<p>

"Go see Loki," the Doctor encouraged, Max was normally first out of the door to go back and he would work easier with no one around Max grudgingly got up and left the Tardis, half expecting to be attacked every step of the way.

She reached the gate unhindered and was met by Heimdall who gave her a stern look.

"The prince stays here." Max blinked, just a tiny bit confused, she nodded in agreement, not quite registering his words.

No one dared stop her as she wandered to the great building. She could feel where Loki was, he was alone in a library. That was her destination. Nothing else mattered.

It took a few seconds for Loki to notice her in the door way. He had grown again, looking in his early twenties, quite handsome. Max was happy that there were no visible scars from Thor's actions in her last visit.

"Silfr Freki," Loki whispered, as if he couldn't believe his eyes. Max smiled.

"Hello Loki." The god rushed over, stopping just short, then hesitantly reached out a hand to touch her face. Confirming she was real, she found herself pulled forward into a hug. Uncharacteristic of any occupant of Asgard but Max was willing to allow the god to show emotions and not question it. She knew the strain of keeping them inside.

"I wondered if you were real," he mumbled. He drew back and looked at her, looking very much like the prince he was. "You appeared when I needed you. I thought you were my imagination. You stood up for me when no one else would. I grew stronger because of you, what you taught be and the techniques you gave me. They've saved me so many times."

"Then I am glad I shared them with you." Loki suddenly moved to arm's length away.

"Are you here for Thor's coronation?" he asked suspiciously.

"Thor's getting crowned? Which dumbass thought that would be a good idea?"

"My father." Loki didn't look upset at the fact she'd just insulted his dad. Max couldn't blame him. "Are you staying for it?"

"No, I will hide if I have to, and leave if I can first."

"Take me with you. Please." Max wasn't sure if the pained look was from the thought of staying, or having to practically beg.

"I can't." Heimdall's words were repeating themselves in her head. 'The prince stays here'.

"I can't stay here. This place is keeping me from growing. We could do so much. Whatever we want." He really was pleading with her. It hurt to see him like this but Max knew there were some things she could not do even with all the power she possessed.

"I really can't." Max turned her head when she saw the pleading look turn to desperation, she couldn't stand that look, she could feel her heart breaking for him. She missed his facial expression changed to rage. A surge of magic blasted her across the library, breaking the shelves she came into forceful contact with.

"I'm not some weak child anymore. I will not be treated like one, like you know what's best for me." Max felt guilty for wanting to make him angrier. It would make it easier to say no. To leave this time and never come back. She knew the Tardis would succeed this time. It was how things always went.

"I should go. You should stay. It's how it needs to be." Max found herself pressed up against the destroyed shelves, a hand slowly crushing her throat.

"Don't presume you know what is best. I am a god." Max chuckled darkly, she'd heard that before.

"God's don't run from their problems. That's what you want to do. Run and hide like a child." The hand around her throat tightened in anger. Max was fully aware she was being a hypocrite. If Loki had been thinking more rationally then he might have picked up on it.

Again, Max felt herself flying through the air, smashing through the window and plummeting towards the street below. She allowed herself a quick eyeroll before apperating back into the library.

"You may be a god, princeling." Max said advancing on the Asgardian, getting close enough to reach out and touch him. He seemed frozen in place, confused by how she got there. "But I am a legend," she whispered. She put a hand to his cheek and tilted his head down. As she had done on every encounter she kissed his forehead.

With nothing more to be said, she walked out of the library, past the crushed shelves. Waiting outside was Heimdall giving the nearest to an approving look as he could give.

"This is your last visit to Asgard." He informed her as he escorted her back to the Tardis. Max nodded, she'd figured as much. "May your conquests be forever fruitful Silfr Freki." Heimdall pressed his clenched fist to the armoured plate above his heart in a warriors salute.

"May your eyes be forever sharp and your protection of Asgard and its people ever plentiful." Max returned the gesture before slipping back into the Tardis. She slumped against the closed door with a tired sigh.

"Just in time Max." The Doctor called over to her smiling, it faltered when he noticed her expression of weariness. "To the next adventure?"

"Why not?"

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><p>And that's how you fit a characters development in one chapter.<p>

Hopefully the next chapter won't take as long to get out.

Reviews are loved as much as I love the idea of actually getting enough sleep.

I love my sleep.


	10. London Calling

So many assignments to do. Stupid essays, and lab reports, and court reports, and more essays. If only I could write them as easily as I do this stuff.

Anyway, here is your chapter.

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><p>The Doctor watched his companion as the Tardis cruised through time and space. Despite the fact she'd been a historical topic back on Gallifrey, one of the greats of Time, he couldn't make the connection between the young woman in front of him and the portrayal in the history books. The fearless warrior just seemed like a girl just about holding on to herself.<p>

Moving over to a screen not facing Max, the Doctor pulled up the texts about her. He felt a bit bad about looking up her future, it was all set in stone for her. If she saw it then the consequences were unlikely to be good, especially with her reputation. She seemed zoned out, balancing on the railings.

The Doctor skimmed the early life, there wasn't much documented about her until she got to Earth and even then she didn't become a major figure until the Kira case. Time Lords knew of Death Gods but they had an agreement to leave each other alone. He started off in the third year of Hogwarts, making a mental note to visit there again, he wanted to see if had actually changed since his last visit.

* * *

><p>They finally landed. Floating around in time and space had become boring after a while. Max had come back to reality so the Doctor stopped reading about her life, it wasn't fair. It would also be only too obvious to her what he was doing. Shinobi were famed for being practically mind readers from the smallest hints.<p>

Max peaked out of the door, weary of finding another place she knew would end up as an unavoidable disaster. She was met with at least three guns pointed at her. A slightly assorted group of people accompanied these guns.

"Bollocks." A quick glance around the surrounding area, aided by FA showed she was on a spaceship.

"How did you get on my boat?" asked one of the armed people. At that moment the doctor popped up behind her with his huge grin firmly in place.

"A bit of chrono-spatial-metaphysical transcending displacement." It took Max a few seconds to process that as pretty magic time ship. It was clear only one person from the group had understood all of that, but was sceptical of its validity.

"Say what now?"

"Magic box," Max said bluntly, she was getting a bit tired of being on the business end of these guns. It was about then a young woman ran in and tackled Max, taking advantage of the preoccupation with the guns. It took a few seconds to untangle herself and hold the other girl at a distance that didn't intrude on her personal cube.

Things took a bit of a surreal turn as Max studied the girl, there was an eerie similarity between the two women. The stranger stopped struggling and held out a hand.

"River," she offered. Max tilted her head, a bit confused by this girl but politely returned the handshake.

"Max." River squealed and release her hand clapping in joy, grabbing Max's hand, she dragged him over to the smartly dressed man.

"This is Simon, my brother." She seemed quite proud of this fact from the great big smile. The Doctor moved up to Max, keeping an eye on the siblings. River then let go of her brother and gestured to the surroundings. "This is Serenity." The girl then bounce around introducing the rest of the crew in the room

"Hold on. Just who are you?" The guy who had first asked the question asked. Mal, if Max heard correctly.

"I am Max, this is the Doctor. We travel and get kicked out of bars." She couldn't resist adding the last part, she was mischievous by nature. It helped the mood, the guns were no longer pointed at the time travellers, but still within easy reach.

"I don't suppose you have any fuel in that box of yours?"

"Why are we asking? We should just look and take what we want. They're stowaways, they ain't got no rights." One of the men with guns, Jayne attempted to whisper to Mal.

"I'm afraid you do not have that option," Max said coldly, facing the man who might have been trying to be discreet. The man just laughed at her while Max allowed a small smirk. Both reacted, drawing their weapons.

In hindsight Max realised that the P-90 was a bit too big to have been concealed on her person. She had summoned it from a seal on her belt, a real one nicked from one of her visits to the SGC. It was also a bit too flashy and probably overkill, she was just hoping no one called her out on it.

The Doctor stepped forward ready to intervene and placate the both sides along with the presumed captain. Before anything could be resolved a voice spoke up over the ship wide speakers.

"We've got incoming Reavers."

"Reavers?" the Doctor repeated half questioning, then his eyes grew wide as he faced Max half sizing her up. The captain had dashed over to the nearest communication box on a wall to talk to the pilot.

"Reavers are mutated humans, the result of an experiment gone wrong. They are horrifically violent, they will torture, kill, rape, and eat you. If you're lucky in that order." The doctor muttered to her. He knew she was confused and she would be able to help.

"Ok, I have some bad news, they have seen us and we can't out run them with our current lack of fuel. Any other options?"

"I can help," Max said looking at the Doctor for confirmation. It was cheating a bit but for some reason Max couldn't shake off this feeling about River.

"What do you need?" Mal asked, he was hiding the panic quite well. Reavers seemed to instil a deep fear in all of the crew.

"A view of the ship will do," Max said with a smirk, she patted locations to check she was armed. She didn't want to use the gun until she knew if it would penetrate the walls of the ship. She did not want to go out into space unprotected.

As she was escorted to the cockpit she idly realised the Tardis was taking them where she, or her skills, were needed before letting her do her time loop. She wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not.

"There it is." Mal pointed out after a brief introduction to the pilot. The ship he was pointing to looked disgusting. There were human bodies mutilated and chained to its hull.

"Ew. Well, back in a jiffy," Max said in an overly posh English accent before apperating over to the Reaver ship.

Max did have to blame the Tardis for all these situations. She was tearing through creatures who could no longer be classed as human. FA came in really handy, she didn't want to accidentally blast through an outer wall. That would be worse that shooting it. Leaving a trail of butchered chunks of flesh in her wake, Max worked through the ship. Survivors were not allowed on her watch.

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><p>They tried not to have too much of an emotional goodbye. Having shared a meal, after Max had cleaned all of the blood off her skin, they did a fair amount of bonding. The various foods Max kept in scrolls went down a treat. It was a habit she'd never gotten out of. Some countries in the hidden continents didn't have much of a variety of food so Max had found that she could sometimes bribe ninjas with some of the food rare in their area. One such fruit was strawberries. Kaylee, Serenity's mechanic had been practically glowing with delight.<p>

Eventually the Doctor and Max were back in the Tardis, floating through time and space. The Doctor had figured that the box would take them where she needed them to go and no amount of levers or buttons he pushed would change her mind.

Max had been waiting for this stop as she looked out into a familiar cave. It was where that dragon boy had been years ago, she spared a thought to wonder what had happened to him but knew she wouldn't have much time to finish her own quest.

It didn't take long to find the clearing with two teenage girls passed out. She placed down some of the items she'd picked up on her travels and then dripped the potion Morgana had given her into both of their mouths, watching them regress to children.

She was careful not to touch them, doing so could cause a paradox. On the edge of her senses she could feel her old teacher heading in that direction. She wanted to stay for a while and talk but she knew it couldn't happen. What had happened from when the two toddlers woke up was set in stone. She knew that for certain, she was one of the girls.

Flickering out of the clearing she headed back to the Tardis, wishing she could have done more. She'd felt a bit out of her depth to begin with, covering it up with hyperactivity and sarcasm. Laura had it worse, not having much of a clue about the place she'd been dumped in, just dragged along for the ride. This at least explained how they had ended up physically toddlers when they had first turned up.

* * *

><p>As only seemed logical to Max, she was deposited many years later in Konoha ready for the time loop to be sent on its way. Here she would save as many as nine lives, including her own. Akatsuki was too dangerous to leave in one piece. She couldn't completely destroy all trace but the rings were unique and vital to the group. The easiest thing was to steal and cripple the organisation. She had a plan for each member she hadn't stolen a ring from, a few hints on the note from her past self.<p>

She henged into Murdock, as far as anyone who wasn't Itachi was concerned Murdock was the ring thief and it would stay like that.

It took a while to do, the last one was a stroke of genius, weed killer. The fact it had actually worked was surprising but hilarious.

After sending the crate to Ducky for her to get later Max knew she was coming to an end of her travels with the Doctor. The next time she stepped out of the Tardis she recognised the London feeling. She was back in her own time. Three days later if the paper was correct. She wondered if Itachi had gone home. Maybe at some point she would too, but not now.

The Tardis faded from view with its customary noise and Max was alone down a deserted alley in the middle of the day. She started to walk, no concrete destination in mind. Now she had no mission it was boring, that niggling feeling saying go home was ignored. Even though there would no doubt be missions there it still held the sting of betrayal.

It was as she was wandering down a street she was pulled from her thoughts as someone tried to grab her. Without consciously trying, she had the man bent over a small garden wall, his face pressed up against the brick, his arm pulled painfully behind his back. It didn't matter that he was pretty much twice her height, he'd picked the wrong person to grab.

"Uh, can you release him please?" Max turned to find a blond man watching her with alert eyes. The calculating eyes of a soldier. Former soldier by the relaxed posture. Max released her hold and allowed the man to stand. He seemed to be studying her as his dusted himself down.

"I always wondered if the government had started using children to do their dirty work." The tall man mused. Max supressed her smirk, the man was right but she wasn't one of them.

"I'm sure you know I am not a child."

"Of course not, your file said you are almost 20 Rho." The way the blond was looking at the man implied that this knowledge was not supposed to be known. "Mycroft really should stop leaving work out when he's running late."

"I thought I was finally done with people who say cryptic things then expect everyone to know what they're talking about," Max grumbled. From the smirk on the blonds face she wasn't the only one with that opinion.

"John Watson," he said with his hand out. Max shook it, a nice firm handshake.

"Max Hakie. Who's Mr tall, dark and assaults people?" The dark haired man seemed to realise he was being referred to a and turned to her, somehow with a flourish.

"Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective."

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><p>Yes, back to real time. Shouldn't take so long to write now, got plenty of ideas to write about.<p>

Reviews are probably going to be better than the feedback I got for my first draft of my court report. Would have been better if my lecturer had actually marked it.


	11. License to be a smart arse

It hasn't been a month (I also don't have a small metric ton of assignments to do)

So, here is the next chapter.

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><p>Crime scenes were not as interesting as some TV shows had portrayed them. Max had learnt that in Vegas. It was no different in London. Even with an obnoxious weirdo with a superiority complex that over shadowed most of the people she knew. That in itself was no easy feat.<p>

Currently she was sitting on the same wall she had scraped Sherlock's face against, watching some of New Scotland Yard's finest miss the obvious. It was almost painful to watch. Sherlock himself was flouncing around dramatically, insulting people and claiming to know more than they did. He still insisted on making a song and dance about giving them the answers.

Around the body seemed a fair amount of vivid purple smudges, degraded to the point it could be a trick of the light. It probably wasn't that noticeable to the officers they weren't looking properly. The there was no colouring on the body but it would have been fairly easy to wash off if it was what Max suspected it was. She wandered over to the body and grabbed a nearby officers hand, planting it firmly over the array of purple blobs. The officers pulled back his hand in alarm.

"Should have been wearing gloves," she scolded looking where she had placed his hand. As she had expected, a purple handprint had appeared. "Ninhydrin. Interesting." Ninhydrin was a chemical that turned purple when reacting with primary and secondary amines, commonly found as sweat. It was used in forensics for finding fingerprints on surfaces that couldn't be dusted for the prints. If it had been used by NSY then some of it would still be on the body.

"What are you doing on my crime scene?" asked a man behind her, he was quite tall with greying hair, sort of reminded her of a more chronically stressed version of Gibbs.

"Incriminating one of your officers who wasn't wearing gloves and so has contaminated the evidence but provided you with the cause of death." The man looked at the officers, the bright purple palm and the matching handprint on the floor. She was quickly ushered out as officers swarmed to the find. Outside she found John waiting patiently and they were soon joined by Sherlock. The tall man had an unimpressed look on his face. Max wondered if he'd been building up to a grand reveal that she'd ruined.

* * *

><p>She sat on a brick wall, almost revelling in the buzz of activity she was observing. Not that she herself wasn't being observed. Sherlock remained fixated on her which in turn was puzzling John.<p>

"You're wrong." Sherlock said, his frown deepening. Max lilted her head in her own confusion, she was right, she knew she was right. It was obvious she had jumped to that conclusion so Sherlock felt the need to get in her personal space before explaining further. "You're right about the case but you as a person are just wrong, nothing about you makes sense." Max smirked a bit. She should have known.

"That's not exactly my problem is it?" On another day, with another person, she might have indulged them and let them ask but she knew of this man and he would keep digging until he was satisfied. This was sure to be fun. "Well this had been an experience but I need to be leaving, places to be, people to avoid." Max turned to head down the street only to notice a black car pulling up. There was a sinking feeling in her stomach that told he this encounter wasn't over.

"Would you please stop hassling Miss Hakie?" requested the man who gracefully exited the car.

"Is she another one of your little agents in training?" Max idly wondered if he was referring to the cherubs. It was possible and of course if anyone found out about them it would be Sherlock.

"No, but I do need to borrow her."

"Then you could ask me nicely." Max rolled her eyes at the adults. The newcomer gestured to the open car door. Max rolled her eyes again but slid in, followed by the man.

"Agents Rho, your assistance is required in a matter of national security."

"Again?"

"I was assured you had fully healed from your mission in Australia. I was also informed you like being kept busy."

"My relationship with the British government isn't the best, too whiny and self-righteous." The man frowned.

"You have been assigned a team for this mission. I believe you already know Agent Rider." Max nodded. It would be interesting to see Alex again. "You also have a double-0 agent on your team. You three are the best England have." Max forced herself not to say that she wasn't England's to use whenever they wanted but she was already going to accept this. Alex had as much of a habit of getting into trouble as she did.

The car went quiet, apparently nothing more to say. Max was curious as to who she was dealing with but contented herself with sitting absolutely still.

It was about ten minutes later the man spoke again.

"I can see how my brother was confused by you." Max had no idea who his brother was.

"Good for him."

"Sherlock takes it as an insult if people can't easily be read." Ah, crazy guys brother. She had no idea how she'd missed that connection.

* * *

><p>In a blank office three agents read through their assignments. Max was flipping through it seriously wondering who had thought this mission would be a good idea, let alone one that would work. Alex was reading through his at a slower pace picking out the details that could prove vital.<p>

The third person in the room was observing the two other agents, he'd already skimmed the assignment and was curious as to why he was on a team, let alone a team with two kids. He'd managed to glimpse their files before the system had locked him out. Both were considered extremely dangerous, the girl more so than the boy.

"Sweet!" Max cheered, she'd found the best reason on this mission. It was at the historic Monaco race. She would be seeing some of Formula 1's heritage. She noticed the weird looks she was getting from the other occupants of the room. Alex was used to her crazy. Mister Bond, James Bond, however was still waiting for someone to come in and say it was all a joke.

His hope had faded when then boarded the flight to Monaco. They would be posing as a wealthy family, Bond was the father and Alex and Max were the kids. As part of the cover Bond's 'wife' had passed away to explain the absence and… At this point Max actually had no idea, she'd skimmed the cover story. She didn't plan on being around for too long, she would watch the mission fail then move on.

MI5 had a nice yacht waiting for them along with some very expensive outfits. Max was grumbling about the dresses and lack of weapon hiding spaces it gave her. Alex had taken great joy in teasing her, mocking her lack of femininity.

From the intel the target would be in the race, and likely partying after it. Bond was supposed to go in and be the distraction while Max and Alex retrieved the package.

The target: Tony Stark. The package: An Iron Man suit.

* * *

><p>It was with great distaste Max got dressed for her part. The other two were fine, they could have nice casual stuff. But she had to look all girly. First, she'd henged to look older, and blonde to match the guys. It was so tempting to henge a smile on her face so she could scowl the whole time but it was too much effort and could easily trip her cover.<p>

She'd picked the least obnoxious sundress, a nice pattern of blue swirls, it wasn't as long as she would have like but it was the best and least clingy. There were still a fair amount of weapons hidden on her person.

She wasn't sure how many she could access without accidently flashing and people nearby. At least she was a weapon herself. Still with the flashing everyone issue if she moved too much though. As a second thought Max shimmied into a pair of shorts. She also grabbed a nice floppy hat and some sunglasses and tried to walk gracefully onto the deck.

"Does your team know you're a girl?" Alex joked. Max scowled at him and gave up walking gracefully, she stomped off the boat and easily lost herself in the crowds gathering for the race.

It wasn't too hard to find a bar, a quick genjustu allowed her entry. Inside, as she had half expected, was the target himself. She walked up to the bar and ordered a drink.

"You look far too pretty to be drinking alone." And the target was hitting on her. Max gave a smile.

"Then would you care to join me?" Max offered politely, playing up her natural British accent while gesturing to the stool next to her. Stark took the seat and ordered his own drink as Max's arrived. She was so tempted to drain the whole thing but she forced herself to take dainty sips as she cast back to the seduction lessons she failed back at the academy. Her goal wasn't to sleep with him, just be vaguely friendly.

"Do you enjoy motorsports or are you here for other reasons?" Stark asked striking up conversation. Max gave a more genuine smile, from the conversation went smoothly.

Until a woman, with strawberry blonde hair interrupted them, nagging Tony about something. Max glared at the rude woman, assistant or not, interrupting like that was rude in all cultures. With a promise to meet up after the race Tony allowed himself to be escorted away by Miss Potts.

Max made sure to be in a place close to the track, she could feel in her gut something bad was going to happen.

* * *

><p>On the fifth lap her gut did a victory dance as one of the marshal's walked onto the track, ripping of the top half of his overalls to reveal some sort of metal harness with what could be whips coming off each arm. They whips started crackling with electricity and the guy starting swinging them about.<p>

Max's heart almost exploded when the first car got hit. Her eyes were impossibly wide when the second joined it. Then Tony's car got the same treatment. Max pushed through the crowd. Tony was unarmed and not protected from the whips. She could help but she couldn't afford to use anything out of the ordinary with so many people close together.

Finally she got to the drag and dashed onto the track. In one of her less sane moments she jumped onto the whip guys back and started pulling the harness. She didn't want to touch the whips, she's had one near death experience with similar and she didn't need a second. The guy tried to throw her off but she gripped on, she's already pulled the metal out of its shape in some hope it would do something. Apparently not. Killing him was not an option right now, not even near death. Too many witnesses and people would want to interrogate him, and steal his tech. Hindsight reminded her she should have henged first.

By this point backup had arrived for Tony as he kicked his briefcase which transformed into an Iron Man suit. The whip guy turned his focus back to Tony, Max wasn't doing too much damage and so was the lesser threat. In all fairness Max was a bit starstruck by the suit, it was very cool. Until the lightning whips wrapped around him.

Max realised she had to get serious. That suit was not going to hold up for long. She flipped over whip man while his hands were occupied holding Iron Man. Seeing the power source on the chest part of the harness Max ripped it out with her chakra enhanced strength. The harness lost all power. The whips fell off Iron Man who reflexively stepped back. Max was cockily tossing the power source into the air mockingly.

Stupid move really. It took her by surprise when a whip held her fast. Whip guy took the power source and placed it back into his harness, jiggling it a bit to get it to reconnect. Max had broken some of the bits, unfortunately not enough to permanently disable it. That was why the whips were powering up, the other had also been wrapped around her. Whip guy knew she could bend metal so was not taking the chance.

Max was panicking. She could see the build-up of electricity and it was scaring her. Her mind was subconsciously thinking back to that mission. The one where Yuri died for her. There was no saviour waiting here. She strained against the metal but it was wrapped too tightly.

She was shaking now. There was too much she still wanted to do. She could feel the sharp shock as the range of power started to get close to the coils around her.

Was this how she was to die?

* * *

><p>There will be more Sherlock later. I had to add Bond after seeing Skyfall. Iron Man is awesome.<p>

I also have a new project. I started it as a way to get out of my assignment induced writers block. It's Percy Jackson based with my usual mess about. Feel free to check it out.


	12. Do you believe in aliens?

I didn't get as much writing done over Christmas as I'd hoped for. I managed to get ill which sucks.

Contains shoutout for **RawrAnimeRocks **It's been a while but I didn't forget you.

* * *

><p>Max opened her eyes, the sparking had stopped. She was in a forest, the whips now looked like ninja wires. In front of her, holding the two wires to short circuit the justu, was Yuri. It was her memory.<p>

"I've always been proud of you Max." Her old teacher told her. "You, Itachi and Hana were my favourite team." Max could feel her eyes watering.

"I made so many mistakes."

"You aren't the first. A shinobi's life is rarely simple with all the deception and betrayal. You're doing really well to keep afloat with such a tough life." Yuri smiled at her former student fondly. Then her face turned serious.

"You have choice to make. Right now you're at a fork. One path leads you to peace, no more worrying, pain or betrayal. But you won't be able to contact any of your friends. The other path is not as easy. It might even break you. But in taking this path you can continue to protect your friends and save the worlds." Max's lips twitch into a small smile,

"There isn't really a choice. I would never leave my friends completely." The proud smile was back on Yuri's face.

"I suspected as much. The other path would have been you choosing death. Maybe you should visit home more often." Max winced. It had been so long since she'd been back in Konoha, and it still hurt to think about it. "Thinks will not be easy with this path, you will need to go back eventually. Try not to let the actions of some keep you from your friends." Yuri was starting to fade from view. Max wanted to reach out but her arms were still bound. "I'm so very proud." Were Yuri's last words before she disappeared completely.

There was a rush of sound and light temporarily blinding her senses. She was back in Monaco. In front of her Iron Man stood, holding both whips, reminiscent of how Yuri had been holding them. The suit acted as a faraday cage, the electricity passing over the casing, leaving Tony safe inside. For the moment any way, the suit was sparking dangerously and probably couldn't handle too much more.

Max felt her rage building, the pale tendrils of power barely visible in the bright sun. She wasn't going to let someone else sacrifice themselves for her. The tendrils wrapped around the coils trapping up and pulled them apart, completely destroying them. They reached forward and one touched the whip guy's forehead causing him to collapse. She could practically see the look of confusion on Tony's face under the Iron Man helmet. The tendrils retracted into her leaving her with a drained feeling.

Miss Potts got out of the car that had taken the briefcase Iron Man suit to Tony and started fussing over the mechanic. Max took that as her cue to leave and started walking back to the other side of the track.

"We still on for that drink later?" She heard Tony call, his helmet had been moved away from his face. Max could see his emotions clearly, sadness, curiosity, and the smallest bit of hope. She smiled and nodded, getting a smile in return.

* * *

><p>It wasn't long before Alex and Bond caught up with her. She was expecting the chewing out she got from Bond. Alex was far too used to her antics by now. After Bond's rant finished Max mentioned aborting the mission. It was a lost cause, people had tried this before and failed. The British secret service had no right to it. It had then led to a rant about loyalty in which Max told him her loyalty was not to England. Not the best situation Alex had ever had to sit through.<p>

The sun was setting as Max made her way to the bar she had agreed to meet Tony at. She'd changing into a different dress, knowing she should try to continue with her cover and dress appropriately for the encounter. The dress was a deep purple with some silver highlights. She'd picked out some matching heels and was using her ninja skills to keep he balance and stop herself from breaking an ankle.

Bond hadn't look impressed when she left the yacht but Alex had given her an approving look and a thumbs up. The bar wasn't too crowded and it was easy to spot the billionaire and his sort of assistant. In the same way, it was easy for her to be noticed and she was beckoned over. She got the feeling she was heading for an interrogation.

They didn't stay in the bar long, Max was practically bundled into a car.

"Which agency?" Tony asked her. Max smirked and shook her head slightly, she should really have known, of course he would dig into her life. He probably knew more than any individual agency.

"MI5 at the moment." She saw no point lying. There was silence for a while, they probably hadn't been expecting her to be honest.

"I thought spies were supposed to be secretive?" Miss Potts murmured.

"Only to whom they are loyal. I've been a free agent for years. MI5 have been taking a few too many liberties around me for me to give a crap." Max explained, the way she saw it, first the Iron Man suit, next the source of her powers. She hadn't exactly been careful enough with them, someone was bound to notice.

"Sounds like the entire American government." Tony muttered. Max had to agree, she'd worked with them too. "So what are MI5 going to do now?"

"I said the mission was aborted. They can't touch me anyway, they've tried." It hadn't stopped her from going on missions that ranged from boring to suicidal. Tony leant forward in his seat and told the driver something.

It wasn't long before they were at a villa overlooking the sea. Tony had made a beeline for the drinks and soon everyone had something. Some crappy TV show had been put on and Max had a feeling this was going to be interesting. She took a sip of her drink, she could taste how expensive the vodka was. She joined Tony slouching on the sofa watching the huge TV in silence.

They didn't stay quiet for long. Max broke the silence with a comment on something stupid done on the show and from there they started their own running commentary. Neither had expected the night to descend into a heart to heart but knowing they had a kindred spirit felt nice. Both had something people wanted, had people nagging them and wanting them safe. They both also liked the good alcohol.

* * *

><p>Back in the Hidden continents Itachi was meeting up with an old friend. Konoha was boring and he didn't really fancy another ridiculous assignment quite yet. Tsunade was trying to keep Itachi in the village. She could feel a shift of power coming and wanted her strongest assets where they would be useful.<p>

"Is that a child?" Itachi asked, raising an eyebrow at the small bundle of fabric his friend was cradling. Deidara had asked to meet him in a small café in a neutral village. Itachi had naturally been early to scope out the area and was sat with a cup of tea.

"Yes, believe it or not you were one of these once." Deidara joked, Itachi looked scandalised for a few seconds before cracking a small barely visible smile. "It is mine. Do you remember Miyuki?" Deidara asked, lowering his voice and leaning in closer.

"She was that girl you kidnapped by accident." Deidara nodded. "Is she the mother?" Another nod.

"She's gone missing. I was visiting her, the place was wrecked and she was nowhere to be seen. Hideki was crying in a closet under a hasty genjutsu. It would be no easy feat to take her. I couldn't confirm it but I think she was a Tamahya."

"One of the clans wiped out by the massacres?" Itachi had paid as little attention during history as he could get away with. Max would always describe them in exaggerated gory detail later anyway.

"They obviously didn't do a good enough job back then, really shoddy work. But Miyuki was skilled, had she wanted to be a ninja, I doubt there is a single village who would turn her away with her talents."

"You think she was kidnapped for these skills?" A nod answered that question. "Do you want me to help find her?" Deidara looked a bit sheepish.

"Actually, I was wondering if you could look after Hideki while I looked for her. I can't take a child with me."

"You want me to baby sit?" Itachi seemed to be developing this twitch.

"You could ask Max, she's the only other person I would trust with my son."

"I'd have to find her first," Itachi grumbled, holding his arms out for the child, agreeing to this sort of mission. Deidara gave him a sympathetic look.

"She'll be back. Even if someone has to drag her back."

* * *

><p>The sun woke Max, she scanned the surroundings. Nothing much had changed from last night other that the blanket covering her and a similar one covering her latest drinking buddy. The television was still muted and there were a few glasses on the table as well as a few empty pizza boxes.<p>

Casting her memory back to last night she winced, she hadn't meant to share so much of her life, while technically she wasn't bound by most secrecy things, some things were safer not being known. In turn she had heard about Tony's life, it wasn't the best and he had told her how he wanted to make up for the weapons he used to make. He'd even told her he was dying. By that point they had both been a bit more than drunk and she'd told him death wasn't such a bad guy.

She groaned when she remembered showing him some of her skills, she'd made a small dragon out of fire. Tony had melted part of one of the glasses examining it.

After pancakes for breakfast Max shot of a quick text to Alex telling him to warn MI5 any more missions like this would not be tolerated. She knew she would probably get ignored but now she would have the right to say 'I told you so' when the next attempt failed in an embarrassing way.

Tony kindly dropped her off in Washington DC in his private jet, after getting drunk a few nights in a row. Max knew he had been dying to ask about her abilities but respectfully didn't. It would be like her asking about his suit. Max had been making phone calls during the day, something about security clearance. Tony didn't manage to hear enough of it and respected her too much to hack her calls.

* * *

><p>Max found herself walking towards the familiar building of NCIS, Stark was tagging along, he had supplied the navy with weapons so could easily request a tour. Max was resorting to calling Stark by his last name, to avoid mental confusion with her brother. She wondered if this was a good idea, she vaguely remembered her brother being a bit of a fanboy over the Iron Man suit.<p>

They were greeted at the reception by a guy who introduced himself as Director Vance. Max frowned a bit, last time she was hear Jenny was director. She would probably find out soon enough.

Up in the bull pen the team were obviously working hard. Max was stood there for a good while before anyone looked up and noticed her. She suspected Gibbs had noticed her the second she'd entered the building.

"What brings you to this neck of the woods?" her brother asked grinning.

"I'll tell you in MTAC." Max said, this earnt some raised eyebrows. She grinned and headed off, it was fun to leave people guessing. Behind her Vance motioned for DiNozzo to follow.

Inside the dark cinema-style room the tech guys were just sorting out the call as Max and her brother made themselves comfortable. Vance was overseeing the tech guys before leaving the room. Even his clearance wasn't high enough for this.

As soon as the connection was made the tech guys also left. Tony looked at his sister in confusion, then looked to the screen.

"Is this your brother?" General Landry asked. Max nodded. "You sure he can handle this clearance?" Max nodded again.

"He's been on multiple undercover and deep cover operations, he knows what shouldn't be shared." Max turned to her brother. "Do you believe in aliens?"

* * *

><p>Life is still never dull for Max.<p>

Back to Konoha next chapter. It's not exactly as she left it...


	13. Going to a place I used to call home

Max goes home, but it isn't exactly how she left it.

* * *

><p>It took about an hour to get Tony up to speed on the Stargate program. He took it surprisingly well, joking that Abby would kill to know about the program and it would blow McGee's mind.<p>

"So how come I now have clearance for this?" Tony asked Max when the call finished.

"It's complicated. You remember how I said us being related was impossible?" Tony nodded. "Well, that's because I only stepped foot on this planet when I was ten." It took a while for that to sink in.

"So you're an alien?" Max nodded, she would leave it there for the moment, mentioning other dimensions could wait.

"I want to show you my home. To do that you needed clearance."

"Is this the same home Itachi said you've been avoiding for months now?" Tony asked. It did explain some of her friends. It was too dark to see Max scowling.

"Did Itachi tell you why I've been avoiding it?" Max asked almost scathingly.

"No, he said you had your reasons and left it at that." In all fairness Max did see her reasons as very understandable, but the tale would take too long and she didn't want to talk about it.

* * *

><p>The two siblings grabbed a bite for lunch, Tony explained the latest case they had. They had found a sailor in a disgusting hot tub. Tony had been giggling while he told her of how Gibbs had made McGee get into the filthy water to get the body out. The best part, Tony had told her, was the look on McGee's face when he realised that the water level was too high and would spill into the boots.<p>

It would be mean of Max to drag her brother from the investigation, so she might as well tag along. Well, that was her justification to Director Vance, who didn't look impressed but relented.

So, with the rest of the gang they were crowded around the dead body in autopsy. Ducky was rambling on about something as he poked through the deceased's body.

"So the poor sailor died by drowning." Ducky was saying, inspecting the lungs. Tony snorted a bit. "Not from the hot tub though, if you look there is a lack of algae that was found in the water. No, this man was drowned elsewhere, and quite violently, if you look her there is an indentation on his head. By the looks of it he was pushed against it in the struggle. I've sent samples up to Abby of the water found in Bick's lungs." Gibb's noticed Palmer, Ducky's assistant doing something and went over to look, and probably intimidate the guy, the others following leaving Max to watch the autopsy progress.

"Ah, Maxine, it is nice to see you again." Max let the use of her full name slide, it was Ducky, he was unlikely to change. "I hear you've been on a few adventures. I trust there are still some places you've visited that haven't been wiped of the face of the map." Max almost choked, trying to remain calm and innocent.

"I had nothing to do with that."

"Of course not my dear." Ducky had that knowing look. "Oh, well this is interesting."

This was the cue for the others to stop pestering Palmer and gather around to puzzle over the fragment of a $100 bill found between the teeth of the dead person.

"Was there any other money in his body?"

"No, his stomach was empty."

Max was still focused on the fragment, something was weird about it, she could feel it. She scanned it with FA only to immediately switch it off.

"Is there an ultraviolet light around?" Max asked, it seemed so out of tune with the rest of the conversation going on around her that she got weird stares from the team. "Trust me?" She offered as an explanation, she looked at Palmer who scrambled off to find one.

He soon returned and shone it at the bit of money, as Max knew it would fluoresce. She had managed to slip out while they had been waiting. She really didn't want to be asked how she knew to look.

* * *

><p>The battle was lost. Konoha was smoking from the battle it had seen. Many ninja were missing or dead, replaced by rogues and mercenaries. Civilians feared leaving their homes, a curfew keeping them controlled. Bodies just lay in the street, an unofficial martial law now in place.<p>

The Gondaime was gone. In her place stood an Uchiha watching over his new kingdom. Behind him two of his loyal ninjas appeared to report in.

"No sign of her. She hasn't been here for over a year according to reports."

"She'll be back. Do not allow her to reach the village alive."

* * *

><p>Max was watching time pass in a dangerous way. At Gibbs's desk. She of course got many looks, some of sympathy and some wondering if she was crazy.<p>

As she was sat, feet up on the table, tilting the chair back she noticed someone familiar walk past with Director Vance. In turn she was noticed and approached, Director Vance left waiting by the windows.

"Well, Agent Rho, this is an interesting place for you to be."

"As with you Agent Harkin." The man who had led the mission at Silverstone looked a bit sheepish.

"Actually it's Major Malloy here." This was a problem. DiNozzo had seen this guy, and possibly knew vaguely of his identity. To what extent Max had no idea but it could mess up whatever plan was in the works here. "You caused quite a stir at Monaco. Bond is still complaining about the paperwork."

"Like they didn't expect it," Max snorted titling the chair even further back. "You should probably run along like a good little agent. You can even watch your job be done by this team." Harkin gave her an unimpressed look. "I could of course help or hinder but for my brothers sake I will watch and not interfere."

"Your brother is here?" Harkin's face paled.

"I didn't even need to engineer this," Max giggled. "Just say you were reassigned and that was your Agent name or something and hope they don't check," she looked at her watch. "I believe you have meeting to be in, run along little agent."

* * *

><p>A caravan steadily made its way through the desert. To any outsider it probably looked like a simple group of travellers. To a more trained eye most of the group consisted of Shinobi. The few civilians were closer to the centre of the group so to be better protected.<p>

Not everyone was there who should have been. Many were missing, having stayed behind to aid their escape. No one wanted to think about it.

As the sun set they set up camp, huddling around a fire. Not many words were traded. It was hard for them to believe the events of the last few days, even after having lived them.

"We should reach Suna tomorrow." Words that weren't needed but served as a comfort. They should be safe there.

* * *

><p>It was fun for Max to mess with the British agent, even better to watch her brother interact with Harkin. Watching them butt heads was amusing to both her and Ziva who was unsurprisingly charmed by the Brit. There was something about that accent.<p>

It was part way through watching Harkin get interrogated Max got a phone call. No caller ID. She flipped open her phone and answered it.

"Go home, they need you." The phoneline then went dead. Max's eyes were wide, she knew that voice. That was impossible.

The second the mission wrapped up Max was on the next flight to Colorado Springs, DiNozzo was questioning her on her home, she was only answering because she'd put up some privacy seals.

The sense of urgency spurred Max to the SGC as fast as possible even using some light genjutsu to green light travel through the stargate. Her brother looked amazed at the sight of the circle of what looked like water.

"Abby would kill to see this," he murmured before Max dragged him through.

The second they were clear of the event horizon Max knew something was wrong. The site was safe, goblin wards kept them safe from accidentally being discovered by someone not supposed to be there. A quick blast of FA confirmed Max's suspicions.

Just outside the wards was another matter. Several groups of people waited. That was never a good thing, even if they had Konoha headbands they were not from the village, some of them were missing nins. This didn't bode well.

"What's wrong?"

"Everything. You should go back, or at least stay here until this is sorted. You'll be safe here. It's protected." In the time Max had been gone many things could have happened and at this point in time she feared the worst. There was no way she would willingly bring her brother into a situation like this, he wasn't trained.

"No way, Itachi told me you would likely leave me the second adventure turns up."

"This is not an adventure. This is stuff that you have no experience in, let alone training." Max was getting a bit frustrated, the longer she left this the more that could go wrong.

"He told me you would say stuff like that."

"Did he also tell you of all of my enemies, ones that can kill you before you even realise you're dead?" Max asked scathingly. "Not to mention the ones that would torture you until you're begging to die, twisting your mind until you don't even feel human. This is a whole other level to what you are used to. Let me at least find out what's going on." Her brother considered her words before nodding.

"Keep me updated?"

"I'll leave a clone here to keep you informed." Max didn't mention what else it would/could do. She had a quick pat down of her weapons and scrolls before leaping out of sight, apparating mid leap in the small gap between two of the wards, the people camping outside wouldn't notice her but she was beyond the wards that prevented apparating.

She headed to Konoha under several layers of disguise, each done in a different way, there was no point doing two henges, it would only raise questions if one was seen through and if there were multiple in normally was hostile. With no idea what was wrong she could only assume that nowhere was safe and work from there. Just outside Konoha she picked a tree and observed.

She had no idea that her closest ally was still miles away. She was Konoha's public enemy number one with no idea of the bounty that was on her head, dead or alive.

* * *

><p>The lunch time rush was a good time to infiltrate her home village, she blended in with the crowds, slowly taking a route to her flat. She could feel eyes on the crowd, searching, so far she hadn't been singled out. As soon as she was close enough without many people to distort her image she used FA on her home. It was empty. That wasn't the strange thing, in the surrounding area there were no less than three people watching the flat. Why would they be watching an empty flat unless they were waiting for someone?<p>

Without any more evidence Max hoped her suspicions were wrong. She hoped there was some logical reason for the guards. Slowly in that same way she got near her flat, she headed to the Hokage's tower, ready to switch with a clone and apperate directly into Tsunade's office.

It would have been nice if Tsunade was in there when she checked. Instead she checked several times to make sure FA hadn't developed a fault. It had to be wrong.

There was no logical reason why Shisui Uchiha was sitting in The Hokage's seat. Max flashed out FA as far through the village and beyond as she could go and not one chakra signal pinged back as friendly.

She was screwed.

* * *

><p>Bet you didn't see that coming.<p> 


	14. Infiltration and escape

Uh, I was not expecting for it to be this long, especially as I've had this done for a while. My assignments have me distracted so any updates will be sporadic at best, I also have a trip to Philadelphia at the end of March so don't expect anything until April.

* * *

><p>The best time to infiltrate the village again was not at night. Night time was expected to be quiet with little to no people moving around. The best time was at the end of the normal working day, just add a tired or annoyed expression and it easily blend with the people going home from work.<p>

Max had several clones doing this, she needed to know as much about the situation as possible. None of her friends were in the village and her picture on wanted poster was not really flattering.

The evening rush was just coming to an end when she felt what she had been waiting for. Every evening the prison guards switched, allowing the possibility of a latent chakra signal to be sensed. It was the weakest signal due to the properties of the prison but it would be enough for her to identify at least the strongest person in there.

It shocked her to find out Tsunade was in prison. Why did things have to be complicated? As the only person she could get a sort of reliable story out of she would need to talk to the woman who had used her. That in itself would be difficult. Laura was too good at inventing things and to prevent ninjas from infiltrating the prison to get people out had created a scanner, if the chakra level was over a certain point and not recognised then it would automatically lock down the checkpoint. By now here chakra id would be in the system as 'not welcome'.

Even suppressing her chakra wouldn't help. Laura was thorough in her work, her goal had pretty much been 'Make it Max-proof' and she had succeeded. It had every Goblin ward available protecting it.

She did however have a brother who wouldn't even ping the chakra detector. She established a stronger mental connection with her clone to talk to her brother and explain the plan. It would be dangerous and could go wrong in so many ways but she put some faith in her brother. They were alike in their resourcefulness. After her clone finished relaying instructions it apparated her brother close to the village and dissipated, all it energy used up, she couldn't make a new one to follow him, it would be noticed by one of the Shinobi watching.

It was what felt like a long wait for Max, she hated not being able to do anything. Max hoped to any deity that existed that her brother did not mention or stare at Tsunade's boobs.

* * *

><p>Finally her brother appeared at the meeting point.<p>

"I thought you said you lived in a village, this place is huge. People were jumping from rooftops. This place is crazy." Max waited for him to finish his ramble, she knew this place was a bit of a culture shock and had hoped to be able to introduce it to him slowly instead of shoving him in with a mission.

"Your boss explained what happened. Some guy called Shisui infiltrated something called ANBU with his own team and took out a fair amount, the others apparently on missions or avoided due to their notoriety. Apparently this guy had sleeper agents in most ranks, like he'd been planning this for years, when they staged a coup the ANBU called to protect your boss were his agents and so it was a short coup. One of you friends managed to see this and warned the others, agreeing they needed to regroup. Your boss doesn't know where they went so they couldn't get the information from her." This was not what Max wanted to hear, it could have been worse but it could have been a lot better.

"We need to go to Suna, it's another village, the one Gaara comes from. We're allied with them, or at least we were last time I was here, but that's where they would go."

"I also was told to tell you code 12 grey." Max groaned, that was not a nice protocol to have to follow. It also meant Tsunade hadn't been able to implement it before being subdued.

She asked Tony to leave by the west gate and just keep following the path, keeping his gun at the ready, getting out of the village after this stunt could be difficult. She cast a quick spell to make people ignore him unless they really focused to help him leave unnoticed.

* * *

><p>It was annoying having to travel around like a civilian, so slow and boring to avoid being detected. The second she thought she wasn't being watched she turned invisible, grateful for the freedom it gave her. She leapt up the side of the Hokage's tower and crouched on the windowsill ready for some mischief.<p>

The look on Shisui's face when a section of the wall burst started glowing was amusing at the very least. The look on his face when he realised what was going on was beyond priceless. Max was sealing the hidden vault. Only a combination of two of three people could now open it. One was in prison, one was crouching on his windowsill, completing the spell, the third was hopefully far away.

He turned to the window, Sharingan blazing and his eyes narrowed, Max's invisibility obviously had a weakness against his bloodline. Max knew she'd been caught, she rushed through the last sequence to finish up, she needed to get out of there soon. She switched to FA mid spell and screwed her eyes closed, her hands were too busy to grab a bandana. Shisui watched in confusion but quickly regained his composure.

"I knew you would come, you're late but all the more time to plan for your arrival." Lovely words she always liked hearing. "You could always pledge allegiance to my cause. You would make an excellent addition, my strongest warrior, answering only to me. Your name would be known in every town, feared by all." Max snorted, her name had been in the bingo books for over a decade and she was feared by anyone who knew it. She finished up the sealing, but was unable to resist trading a few taunts.

"Power must make you delusional, there's no way I would willingly join your side."

"Then I'll take unwillingly." Shisui muttered, he held up a hand and two ANBU appeared each side of the window, threw powder at her to make her more visible and grabbed at her. Max had anticipated this from the beginning of the hand movement and had already leapt off. Various projectiles followed her along with a net that unfurled looming over her. Max twisted in the air and threw a large shuriken that caught up in the net and stopped it from getting to her. She landed heavily on the roof, not managing to escape all of the weapon shower.

Within seconds there was a squad on the rooftop looking for her, there was no Hyuuga so she was safe. That was until she noticed the kunai that had managed to hit her calf, she was bleeding and that would get her caught if it left a trail, she needed to leave, now.

With a small pop she appeared part way down the trail from the west gate, sending disguised clones in either direction to find Tony. It didn't take long, her estimate had been close. As she waited for her brother to catch up she crouched by a tree and started checking the damage. As well as the kunai in her leg she had a few scrapes from other projectiles and a few still stuck in her flesh. Her shoulder was the worst, it must have been the adrenaline of the situation that had kept the pain from alerting her to the fact there was a tanto going through her shoulder.

Who threw a sword anyway?

That was not going to be enjoyable to remove. Her brother's reaction was not going to be good either. While she waited she removed some of the weapons, the ones not to deep, and bandaged them up. She wasn't sure how to approach the tanto problem, it had gone straight through, the handle sticking out just above her shoulder bone and the tip poking out under her collar bone.

* * *

><p>Tony turned up just as she inspected the injury as best she could. To say her brother was shocked at what he saw was an understatement. She had warned him this place was dangerous. He helped her at least immobilise the blade and her arm so it wouldn't cause more damage, it limited Max's abilities but there wasn't much else to do.<p>

It was just as they passed the Fire country border Max's heart skipped a couple of beats as she picked up a familiar Chakra signature, it was faint, it was only because she was so tuned to it she have even felt it. Itachi was around. She informed Tony before dragging him off the path with her good arm, spreading out some clones to scout the area.

They reached a cave, her clones declared the area safe. Max pinged her FA to check it was Itachi and froze before grabbing Tony and charging in.

Inside only just visible in the dim light was Itachi, he didn't look in good shape and he wasn't conscious. In his arms was a baby whose weak cries could only just be heard.

"I was not expecting that," Max mumbled, completely confused, the blood loss wasn't helping. Tony however went straight over to check on the man and child, Max stumbling after.

Itachi stirred, managing to crack open a dark eye, his mouth quivered into a smile and his eye closed again.

"I knew you would be back," he breathed, his voice was no more than a hoarse whisper.

"Not the first time 'home' has declared a kill on sight command on me," Max offered dryly, her partner smiled more.

"The others have gone to Suna. I held them off with Kakashi, forgot I had Hideki."

"He looks fine, you did well. Rest, you look like you need it." Tony ordered, they avoided asking whose it was, that conversation would take place later. Max declared she would watch all night, Tony wouldn't be a huge help, and after seeing the mess his sister had managed he was starting to agree. He did wonder where she had got that many cans of red bull but guessed it was a ninja thing.

At the crack of dawn Itachi groaned back into consciousness and was immediately helped by the siblings. He seemed a bit healthier after whatever Max had given him last night and was definitely more aware. Max grabbed him in a sideways hug, avoiding stabbing him with the tanto, not really wanting to let go. She'd missed him, probably far more than she would ever admit.

"You do know you have a short sword going through your shoulder Max?" Max laughed and let him go to start packing up. They needed to get moving, Tony had protested, the two Shinobi were in no state to fight if it came to it. Max simply summon a couple of clones, one of them helped Itachi stand and the others grabbed their bags as they headed for the mouth of the cave.

"We need to get to Suna as soon as possible. I'll send a clone ahead to check it's safe and get help if possible." Max announced as the plan of action.

* * *

><p>The dessert was probably the hardest part of the journey, especially with a small baby. Max was guiding them, Tony had the child while Itachi kept an eye out for potential threats.<p>

It was about half way through when Max took a step and the sand swallowed her foot, causing her to painfully face plant into the sand. Luckily it was loose sand or the tanto in her shoulder would have shifted a lot more. It still hurt, where the wound had sealed up around the metal was now bleeding. Max slowly got to her feet and shook her fist towards Suna.

"Dammit Gaara!" she cursed, it was as if she'd summoned the young kazekage when he rose out of the sand, his usual gourd on his back. He frowned at the blood leaking through the bandages around the short sword, as well as the presence of the short sword in her shoulder.

"Max, Itachi, Tony. It is nice to see you again. I will be personally escorting you to Suna. You will be under the protection of the whole of the Land of the Wind and my personal protection."

"Thank you Kazekage-sama," Itachi croaked, he was still leaning heavily on one of Max's clones. The ground rumbled as a block of sand lifted them up and started moving. Tony was taking this extremely well, being told about this kind of thing and actually seeing it were two different things.

The group took the time to sit down and rest on the jouurney, Gaara even nicely put up a thin layer of sand to block out most of the glaring sun and stray wisps of sand. Max sat next to Gaara, she needed to know what he knew. She was tasking herself with taking back Konoha and for that she needed information and a couple of partners in crime.

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><p>Reviews are awesome so feel free to leave one.<p> 


	15. The beginning of another revolution

Exams are coming up, and I might have work all summer. America was good, a bit weird, a bit mental but not bad.

* * *

><p>As much as Max had previously disliked the girl, Sakura wasn't a bad medic. The only proof that she'd had a tanto through her shoulder were the two vivid white scars. One just below her collarbone, and the other just above her shoulder bone, two more marks to add to her collection.<p>

Also thanks to Sakura, Itachi was almost back to normal. By almost, there was the slight problem that his chakra was inaccessible. Max had no idea how she'd missed it when she'd found him in that cave. The day's events might have sent her for a loop but she should know better.

It had taken some effort to pry Naruto off her when he'd found she was in Suna. Max was relieved to see he was ok. A slice of terror shot through her chest when she remembered Sasuke had a mountain size grudge against Shisui and was unlikely to have left peacefully. She flashed FA to make a quick head count and sighed in relief when she found him and at least most of the others.

She'd managed to only be found by Naruto so far, and obviously Sakura, she didn't want them to find her just yet. She'd convinced both of them to keep quiet, it had taken a lot of work and a promise to stay around for at least a month. Itachi and DiNozzo were keeping low profiles around town. Itachi could get away with being there and no big deal being made, DiNozzo wasn't known to a lot of them.

"Stop it." Max had been dangling her legs over the side of the Kazekage's building in peace, stargazing like she always did in Suna. It unfortunately made it easy to find her, at least to people who knew she was there, as Itachi had. He still had the child tucked into a sling, carefully laying against his chest. It was obvious he had been tasked with looking after the boy or he would have handed him over to one of the girls who had been squealing over the child earlier.

There was the slight possibility it was his, Max had been gone long enough. "It's Deidara's." Itachi seemed to read her mind, Max nodded in understanding. They sat there in silence for a bit, uncertain what to say despite having a lot they wanted to talk about.

"I'm glad you're back."

Max's eyes watered, she couldn't help but wonder if this could have been prevented if she'd stayed.

"Where are the others?"

"Dead, missing or captured." There was no need to sugar coat it. They both were more than aware of the harsh realities of ninja life. Max wanted to ask for a more specific count of each but was afraid she didn't want to know the answer, the guilt was already weighing in against her chest. Another thing was building up, her determination to make things right, she was not going to tolerate Shisui sitting in a seat he didn't deserve.

"Shisui isn't going to let you take back Konoha if he can stop you. Promise me you won't do anything rash."

"When do I ever do rash things?" Max joked. It fell a bit short of its mark and the two were silent again. Max was half tempted to just fix it like she had with Forks and just blow it up. But it was her home, even if she wasn't there much.

"Laura's working on a cure for the chakra blocking poison. Wait until she's done before you try?" Itachi didn't want her to go on her own, but without chakra they would have only Sasuke to go up against Shisui's Sharingan, and Sasuke didn't have the benefit of Mangekyo.

"I make no promises." It was easier that way.

"Please Max?" He got no response. "It didn't go so well last time you ended up without chakra…" That was a bit too far. Max silently got up and departed from the rooftop. Itachi let her go, he knew his words had hurt, but he hoped she'd still listen. At least she hadn't lashed out, that was a good sign. He just hoped Gaara didn't pick up on Max's mood. The Kazekage was still very protective of her and Itachi didn't want to wake up encased in a sand coffin.

* * *

><p>It was only after hearing Max's yelling that Itachi found out Gaara's sand was stopping Max from leaving the village anyway. It was the same yelling that alerted Max's friends to her presence.<p>

Max felt cornered as she slowly grew aware of many eyes watching her. She backed up against a wall feeling very nervous. She didn't stay like that for long, a few seconds and one blur later she'd been tackled to the ground. Naruto sat on top of her, almost daring her to try to move him. She couldn't apperate like that and he knew it.

"Were you planning on letting us know you were here?" Laura demanded standing over her.

"You already know the answer."

Laura gave a short laugh, "Of course I do. I'm more concern as to why you seem to be avoiding your friends."

"I knew you'd corner me and ask questions like that," Max muttered into the sand.

"Let her up Naruto." Max didn't have a choice as she was yanked up, she would have been content to childishly lie there. "At least you're in one piece." From the surrounding people there was a snort of laughter. Laura had obviously seen who it was as she rounded on Max with narrowed eyes. Of course Sakura had ruined what could have been just a light lecture.

Laura took a few deep breaths and smiled. For some reason it didn't reassure Max.

"It looks like we have lots to talk about, and I can assume you plan on at some point going on a suicide mission to take back Konoha." Max rolled her eyes and really hoped this talk would be at a bar.

* * *

><p>The next day a messenger arrived in Suna for Gaara. As luck would have it Max ended up escorting the seemingly terrified guy to the Kazekage's office. Once delivered Max hovered over her friends shoulder, skimming the content. The second both had finished it Max felt sand encase her.<p>

"You are not going."

"I'm not letting Anko die because of me. Nor will I allow you to go to war against Konoha, not if this can be resolved peacefully." There was tension between the two friends as they silently argued. Gaara eventually relented, as long as she allowed for at least a squad of his choosing to follow half a day behind her. The sand dumped her ungracefully on the floor, the Kazekage's irritation evident. The squad had to be Konoha ninjas or it would be seen as an act of war anyway. That meant he couldn't go either.

Max left without hesitation, everything she needed was hidden in some scroll or another. A side effect of her recently nomadic lifestyle. She almost felt bad about leaving without telling her friends, again, but she always did that for a reason. The only person she would have taken was still not able to access chakra, and they both would agree he would be more of a liability. Two other people might have been helpful due to their Sharingan, asking Sasuke would be the fastest way of Laura catching her, and she hadn't actually seen Kakashi in Suna. She'd had purposefully not thought about why he wasn't there, deciding she would rather not know yet so she could still hope.

Unlike most of her friends would likely believe, she did have a plan. She did after all have a death note in her possession, highly underused. In all honesty Max didn't want him to die, not now, he could suffer a bit first. Which is why the death note was perfect. As long as it specified him dying within 23 days, she could map out his death as long as it was plausible.

She chewed a pen as she walked the well warn path to Konoha. She'd gotten through the desert as fast as possible, it was too easy to get distracted then lost there. The plan started forming on the paper, Max was careful not to mention any names, if they were written then would die, and by not writing Shisui's name yet she wasn't limited to the 6 minutes and 40 seconds as stated in the rules of the death note.

* * *

><p>Heading through the desert as her back up was a small squad, Gaara had chosen well considering what he knew of the circumstances. Teams nine and ten were on their way having been briefed and sworn to the usual secrecy. Team nine had chakra lacking or chakra blocking techniques, if Shisui had managed to weaponise the chakra blocking medicine then they would be needed. Team ten were good for infiltration and extraction. None of them would be emotionally compromised by the situation and go running in head first.<p>

Laura was working on an antidote to the chakra blocking potion, the original creation had only had this effect by accident and she had never looked into what caused it. This was making it much harder to work on, though she did have a semi-willing test subject who wanted to be cured. There were no doubts in Laura's mind that, if she hadn't already, Max was already gone. As much as she would berate her friend for doing this, there was little she could actually do to stop her. Besides, Max always had a trick up her sleeve.

* * *

><p>Breaking Tsunade out of jail was far too easy for Max, she'd forgotten that by activating 12 grey most inbuilt security features were easy to disable. It wasn't a tearful reunion, there was work to be done. Max explained her plan, in code just in case. All Tsunade had to do was break anyone else out of jail then rendezvous with the backup team and pass on the information and from then they would coordinate. For now Max was going to mess with Shisui.<p>

Having sent a small squad of clones to scope out the village Max knew exactly when Shisui wasn't in the Hokage's office. While she waited for him to return she lounged in the chair reading through mission reports. It would be a while before he returned, her clones were purposefully getting glimpsed by the mercenaries who would report it back to him via the radios, one of which was sitting on the desk.

Also in the office was the village wide announcement system, very rarely used but still functional for emergencies. Max fished out her mp3 player and hooked it up, scrolling through her songs to find the perfect one. She activated the privacy wards before pressing play, they would have fun trying to get in to stop the music.

It started out quietly, before building up as Flight of the Valkyries washed over the citizens of Konoha. More and more of her clones seemed to be getting spotted causing mayhem as the villagers panicked while Shisui's forces tried to track the real her down. It was possible they didn't think she would stay by the PA system once setting of the music, and in any other circumstances she would have left, but she was waiting.

The music changed as the 1812 overture took over, Max's clones all heading towards the Hokage's tower and assembling below the window, apprehending the machineries trying to stop them of get through. The music lulled just in time for Shisui to arrive on the scene. Max went over to the window and stood on it, leaning on the side to appear casual.

"Ah, just in time. You knew I wouldn't allow you to keep this place. So, here I am, taking it back."

"You underestimate me Max, you always have." Shisui declared from his perch, where Max's blood still stained the rooftop from her escape in her last visit. Max tilted her head, questioning. "Your ego will be your downfall." Just then the office exploded. Max had seconds to take down the privacy wards before she got propelled out of the office. Shisui hurled kunai at her as she fell, some were intercepted by clones and others she twisted around.

Darts showered over her crowd of clones, dispelling most of them. Nine of them stood their ground, having caught the darts. Max landed between the group and Shisui in a three-point stance making a trio of small craters. One of the clones had started running and used her back as a springboard, throwing themself at Shisui while two others ran at him, coming from the flanks. Max herself launched from the floor as the remaining clones took down the approaching merchs.

The tell-tale red bleed into Shisui's eyes as Sharingan was activated. Max smirked at his look of confusion, the clones weren't actually clones, teams nine and ten, Tsunade, Anko and Kakashi had henged into her. A quick sign flickered through the squad, making sure they all were alert to the Sharingan activation.

"No Itachi? I thought he was the only person you ever willingly worked with?" Shisui taunted as he evaded the Shinobi, only to be trapped by a shadow. "A Nara? You'll need more than that my dear Max." He flared his chakra on a visible light scale, disrupting the shadow. It was a bit too late as Tsunade's fist collided with his face, sending them both over the side of the building closely followed by the rest of the squad.

What they found, from the few seconds the pair had been out of sight, was Tsunade on her knees clutching her head, tears starting to leak from her eyes. Max held up a fist, a universal sign for the rest of the squad to hold position, another sign told them to avoid his eyes. Neji and Rock Lee would be her back up here both with the right kind of experience, Tenten would assist long range.

Max had to resist the temptation to glare at the Uchiha, instead taking out a bandana she'd taken out earlier, being prepared. She tied it in place and stretch her arms out. This was going to get interesting.

Especially when the Death Note started to take effect.

* * *

><p>There is still far more to come I can promise you that (Especially as I keep watching new stuff. Like Iron Man 3)<p> 


	16. Avengers Assemble

I Live!

Ahem... A lot has happened since my last chapter (Which has been mostly been written for a while) I had a summer job, I moved to a different place for Uni which was almost more effort than working and I had two weddings to go to.

I have my final year project this year so most of my effort will go into that, I will keep updating though, hopefully a bit more regularly.

* * *

><p>So maybe spontaneous combustion was a bit too much. The overley dramatic monologue before that too. Maybe even the Macarena. But the job was done and Konoha was recovering again.<p>

Max was finally getting to show her brother around her home, he was slowly getting used to people defying gravity as if the laws of physics were merely a suggestion.

"…and I thought the death note was a bit freaky," he was saying as they sat to have lunch.

"By the standards here it still is. People would go to war for it." Max didn't mention she still had hers. That would just cause unnecessary problems.

"So what's your plan now?"

"I was going to see how long until something bad happens so I can justify leaving again," Max deadpanned, she'd noticed Naruto hiding around to corner eavesdropping. As predicted she found herself tackled out of her chair by the blond.

"You only just got back!"

"Your hiding place was obvious."

"Did you say that just to get a reaction?" Max smirked, of course she had.

"I'm going to have to take Tony back at some point, no doubt there will be some dire emergency for me to diffuse again."

"Could you at least visit, I hate only being able to see you when you're too injured to be doing anything." In all fairness, Max didn't like being that injured either. It hurt.

"No promises kiddo."

It was named Valiant, Max stood on its deck as it descended, clearing away a cloud of gas with its propellers to reveal soldiers scurrying around like ants from her high view. In the briefing Max had half listened to the enemy weren't human, most of the details were unknown, which is why they wanted her, she was known for being able to react to any situation and come out on top.

When the flying aircraft carrier stopped its descent, instead of rappelling down like the soldiers Max jumped, apparating the part of the way and landing dramatically next to a certain time traveller.

"I think by now it's a safe bet that if there's trouble, one of us is bound to be here," Max commented as she dusted herself off. "I think both of us might be excessive though."

"We can use all the help we can get when it comes to global threats." Colonel Mace said sternly eyeing up Max.

"Are people really still this surprised when they see me?" Max muttered. The gaze focused sharply on her face.

"You're here for recon first, I want you to go in and report back on numbers, squad patterns and any other details that will give us the edge we need against these Sontarans."

"Recon? Seriously? That's like using a shovel to eat ice cream." Max grumbled as she shushined towards the factory. Exactly why were they having a problem with mutant human/baked potato hybrids? Next thing would be a problem with statues or little black cubes Max thought sarcastically as she snuck around.

Everyone thought the genius kid saved the day, sacrificing himself. Everyone seemed to forget Max could teleport. The kid was safely at the SGC where someone would send him somewhere useful. The problem with geniuses was always giving them enough to do, if left to their own devices then bad things often happened.

She would probably get shite for handing over a potential British asset to the Americans but first they would have to find out what she'd done.

Max was summoned into a sleek black car after she had rested enough to get back to England, cross-Atlantic trips were taxing for anyone. Mycroft was there, ready to debrief. As they talked Max wondered how long he would last before not using her unless there was no other option like her other handlers.

Max was getting dropped off when Mycroft received a text, he glimpsed at it then locked the door before Max could get out of the car.

"Looks like you're needed again Miss Hakie." No option given, he knew her answer would be yes.

She was taken to an airfield where a helicopter was waiting. Standing by it was Alex Rider, actually in a uniform for once, not one she recognised though. It was only once they were in the air he started to brief her.

"It was codenamed the Avengers Initiative. A couple of months ago the project was scrapped but due to new circumstances the Director has decided to reactivate it."

"Director of what?"

"S.H.I.E.L.D. Strategic homeland intervention, enforcement and logistic division."

"Good call on shortening it. Is it a boy band or something?"

"We protect the Earth from terrestrial and extra-terrestrial threats." Max assumed that by 'we' he meant he was currently employed by them, explaining the uniform.

"Like the SGC?"

"Sort of, only we don't go looking for trouble."

"Sounds boring, should have stuck with being a boy band. So, what current events are forcing you to reactivate this avengers thing?"

"That you'll be briefed about when we get to the helicarrier."

"Helicarrier?" Max deadpanned, Alex just smirked at her.

* * *

><p>Three hours later they came into sight of an innocent looking aircraft carrier and landed. Alex escorted Max to the bridge where a bald man with an eyepatch stood watching over the crew.<p>

"Director Fury?"

"Ah, Agent Rider, and Miss Hakie." Max got the feeling he called her that on purpose, there was no way he didn't know she was an agent. This was going to get interesting.

"That's Agent Hakie and you know it," Max muttered.

"I understand the two of you have worked as a team before so I'm assigning you as Rider's partner. Where he goes you go." Even Alex snorted at that.

"Why don't you show Miss Hakie around? Banner should be somewhere and Rodgers should be arriving imminently." Alex motion for her to follow and they found themselves outside watching people scurry about doing the jobs.

"Is it better here?"

"No life sucking space vampires. I count that as a bonus."

"Are they like every other intelligence agency?"

"We do get big guns sometimes but mostly the same. Ah, Doctor Banner." Max was lead over to a man looking very out of place. Max could feel something weird about the man, the seven-tailed wolf was growling in her mind. As she puzzled it over a weird aircraft landed nearby, it looked like a Chinook and one of the SGC's F302's had a one night stand and this was the result.

Out of the back a suit walked out followed by a man who looked like he'd just walked out of the 40s. A redhead intercepted the second man and brought him over. Max felt a bit out of the loop as Banner and the man clearly had heard of each other. The redhead was glaring at her while the men exchanged noble sounding pleasantries.

Natasha Romanov, the redhead who Alex named for her, suggested they went inside, the group only actually moving when the aircraft carrier started taking off. Max could see the proud look on the two agents face at the surprise displayed by the men.

"For the record, this is a stupid idea for a base," she grumbled as they headed to the bridge, dropping back from the older people.

"You didn't seem even slightly impressed."

"I was on the Valiant about a week ago. I thought it was stupid then too. What makes those two special anyway. I feel left out."

"Doctor Banner had an a accident with gamma radiation a few years back and now when angry he transforms into the hulk, that's not why he's here, or at least Fury says that. The other is Steve Rogers, otherwise known as Captain America, he was found frozen a few months back and we thawed him out."

"So why is there a super soldier and a scientist here? You still haven't told me." He didn't get the chance to as Max was waylaid by Romanov and the Captain heading past on a mission. Max dragged Alex with her if only to play nice for the moment.

* * *

><p>When Max saw they would be going in the weird hybrid thing she asked for the coordinates instead and apparated straight there with Alex an unlucky passenger. Since she still hadn't been told what was up she decided to scope out the area. She was in Stuttgart, Germany, that much she knew. Some fancy event was going on inside the building so she snuck in, henged to fit in looking somewhat similar to when she was in Monaco. As an afterthought she projected a henge at Alex giving him a bit of a Bond look and dragged him inside so they could mingle.<p>

It was quiet until she noticed someone making a dramatic entrance. She hadn't seen Loki in a while, and even then it wasn't on the best of terms. She wondered why he was on Earth anyway. She had to admit he looked good in Earth clothes. The tall god dragged a man over to the middle of the room and pulled something out of his jacket. Now that looked horrific. Max slipped through the crowd to get a closer look, she warned Alex not to make contact.

She needed to wait for him to leave the building, taking him on in such a densely populated room was not good. He wasn't likely to react well to seeing her among normal people. There was a chance he would see through her disguise.

It wasn't long to wait as the guests ran out screaming. Loki followed at a calm pace, a henge slowly fell revealing armour in his usual colours. Max couldn't help but giggle over the helmet, the Asgardians loved their ridiculously ornate headgear. She followed in the shadows, ready to intervene if needed, she wanted to learn more about this situation. Loki wasn't a bad guy, not normally, just a bit of an angsty teen with a 'me against the world' attitude.

The crowd was rounded up by his clones, Max was impressed, he really had thrown himself into the illusions she had shown him as a child. The dramatics might have been something learnt off her too.

Just as he was about to smite the old guy Max dashed past as a blur pushing his aim upwards as Captain America arrived to protect the man and deliver his own speech.

It was kind of funny watching someone fight with only a shield and fists. With his speed and agility the Captain could probably pass for a genin without chakra. Loki really must have practiced fighting with a cape to make it look that effortless. Alex giggled a bit when she voiced that thought.

After Iron Man tipped the scales against Loki they piled onto the weird hybrid jet, Max kept up her henge as Loki didn't seem to notice her through it even after the few curious looks. Stark also gave her a few looks, recognising her disguise.

* * *

><p>There seemed to be a bit of tension in the jet, Loki seemed to be completely relaxed and that was putting the others on edge. That was until a bolt of lightning lit up the enclosed space.<p>

"Afraid of lightning?" Stark mocked.

"I'm not overly fond of what follows." It took Max a few seconds to catch on.

"We have company," she declared seconds before something landed on top of the aircraft. Thor entered the back and shoved anyone who dared get in his way aside before dragging his brother out. Max vaguely heard the Captain say they should make a plan as she dived out of the aircraft after the Asguardians.

As she was freefalling she idly wondered if she should have dragged Alex along. Twisting a bit she saw two other people emerge from the back of the jet. Iron Man was a bit obvious with the glowing thrusters. Max really hoped Star Spangled Spandex had grabbed a parachute.

The events that followed made Max certain that Loki had planned to be caught, during the whole Shakespeare rumble Loki had just sat there and watched. He hadn't made pot shots at the others with his throwing knives that she knew he still had. Against Iron Man they might be a bit useless but there were two other targets. He also hadn't run, well, gracefully sauntered, Loki rarely ran unless there was an actual need for it. Max made her clone appear perched on a rock just on the corner of Loki's eye.

The reaction was fast, a throwing knife thrown at the clone which was promptly dodged.

"Silfr Freki?" Max's clone smirked.

"You're a long way from home Loki."

"Did Odin send you?" Loki asked with contempt, looking away from the clone to hide the unwelcome emotions on his face. Max took that opportunity to dissipate her clone. The goal of this meeting wasn't to chat, but to build up for later.

* * *

><p>In the end the team did get Loki to the base, it was amusing to watch him escorted by a dozen redshirt equivalents. The path took him past the lab where Max had gone. Through the gaps in the blinds Max caught his eye and waved, enjoying his menacing look falter.<p>

"You know him?" Banner asked. Before Max could answer they were summoned to the bridge.

Just as they got there Max saw someone familiar leaving and pinged FA.

"Huh, you got my partner here too?"

"Uchiha-san is here to keep an eye on Loki."

"Of course he is. And if anything else happened not related to Loki he would just sit by and watch?" Max asked. Agencies like this had a habit of adding to missions even after the original goal was finished. Her question gained the director some icy looks and an 'are you crazy' one from Banner.

"Agent Romanov tells me you've had dealings with Loki." His timing was spot on as Thor was lead into the room and immediately noticed the shortest person in the room. Max.

"Silfr Freki." Thor dropped to one knee and bowed his head. Max motioned for him to get up, even if it had felt nice.

"I babysat for both Thor and Loki a few times, then almost destroyed Asgard."

* * *

><p>I have been wanting to add an Avengers crossover since I saw it.<p>

There is likely to be a lot of drama coming up in the next few chapters.

I have plans...


	17. Aliens invade New York

Yay, more Avengers.

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><p>It wasn't often the Director of a secret organisation was speechless, or any of the other barely formed Avengers. Thor was oblivious as he confirmed her words.<p>

"Silfr Freki is a legend among the Asgardians, I am honoured to have been in her care as a child." Thor declared. Stark was the first to react, eyeing Max up.

"Just how old did you say you were?" Max just rolled her eyes.

"Is this a reference?" asked Rogers looking at them.

"Let's get back on topic. Loki is planning something and we need to find out what." Fury said, trying to get the meeting back on course.

"That man has a brain full of cats. You can smell crazy on him." This was actually amusing to watch, who ever thought this collection of people was a good idea was seriously mental. Max was seriously considering breaking out the popcorn.

"Have care of how you speak. Loki is beyond reason but he is of Asgard. And he is my brother."

"He killed eighty people in 2 days."

"And you haven't?" That definitely hit a nerve with the redhead who looked like she sorely wanted to strangle the ninja who had finally contributed to the conversation.

There was a cold silence as the two female assassins sized each other up.

Sensing there could be blood shed soon without intervention Fury spoke up. "Agent Romanov, talk to our guest, find out what he's planning. Miss Hakie, you are to stay away from Loki unless escorted." Max felt her hackles rising, Fury was playing a dangerous game, trying to make them dance to his tune.

No one had warned him against it. He would have to learn the hard way it seemed. Max sent a few clones to map out the helicarrier, one would make contact with Itachi and another would check on Loki. Max wasn't the only one who didn't trust Fury as one of her clones spotted Captain America breaking into a room. No doubt Stark had already planted something to gain access to the ship's mainframe.

With a vague attempt to look like she was behaving Max found herself back in the lab watching Stark and Banner work. She didn't like the glow of the sceptre, its colour unnerved her. It pulsed with no solid rhythm, like it was reacting to something and that was never a good sign.

One of her clones pinged her for attention, she settled in a corner out of the way and focused on seeing what her clone saw. Fury was visiting Loki, obviously Romanov hadn't go there yet and Fury was taunting the god.

"How desperate are you, that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?" Loki was saying, his confidence back even as he was imprisoned.

"You threaten my world with war. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."

"You haven't even noticed one of your people is not who they seem" Loki sneered, Max sighed, he'd noticed she had a henge, but hadn't seen past it? Or he was referring to someone else. "I have my advantage, where's yours?"

"Be assured you do not want to meet my advantage." Loki only smirked at that. His eyes moved from the director to look directly at Max's clone.

"I believe I already have." Max sharply dispelled her clone fearing it would be seen, she didn't want Fury to start seeing her as a threat no matter how much she antagonised him or his people.

* * *

><p>Back in the lab Stark was waving a hand in front of her face having notice her spacing out.<p>

"Nice trip?" He asked and offered a blueberry.

"Slightly worrying actually, I don't trust Loki's presence here." There was something really bugging Max, he instincts were going crazy about something and it needed to click.

"No one does, that's why Fury brought in your partner. What's the deal with him, is he like you?" Stark inquired fixing Max with an analysing look, as if trying to figure out what she could do.

It was at that moment Max's heart sunk to the bottom of her gut. On the helicopter ride over she'd read the SitRep and seen about the compromised agents. In the entire time she'd been here Itachi hadn't once tried to make contact. Either he was blanking her or Loki had gotten to him. It made sense, Loki had taken some of the compromised agents with him, but why wouldn't he leave some as sleeper agents.

"What's up, you look like someone's punched you in the gut."

"We are so screwed if I'm right. Loki is more in control of this play than Fury knows."

"I don't know about that," Fury said as he walked in.

"You've never dealt with Shinobi before. You're beyond screwed mate."

"I thought you were supposed to have Agent Rider with you at all times." Max clenched her fists and supressed an aggravated scream. Fury was so involved in controlling his assets he was missing the big picture.

"Do you really think Loki doesn't have inside help, he took some of the compromised agents, who's to say he didn't leave some behind?"

There was silence in the room as the thought hit home.

"You seem to know a lot about the insights of Loki."

"I babysat him as well as Thor. Of course I know what's going on inside that bag of cats. The only reason he's inside that cell is because he's taunting you. His plan's in action, it doesn't need him to be there anymore which frustrates you because you have nothing to bargain with. Even if you let him go he wouldn't even need to go to where his finale takes place and we'll be in the same position as we are now. Fricking clueless. He's playing with you and you're too busy focusing your eye on the people you want to help you."

"I think you underestimate the interrogation skills of Agent Romanov."

"She's going to tell you Loki is going to manipulate the gentle doctor here into unleashing the Hulk."

"How do you know this?" Screw not looking like a threat, Max had met wizards who could see these plots better. Hell, if Hermione was here she would have hexed everyone for their short-sightedness.

"It's what I would do. This isn't my first rodeo and you've been treating me like someone told you to include their little sister in your little boyband," Max hissed.

Just then over a message filtered through Fury's earpiece. "Loki means to unleash the Hulk." Max's hearing picked up the assassin's voice and she smirked. Fury glared at her but his attention quickly switched to Doctor Banner.

"_I would check on your partner Silfr Freki._" Loki's voice filtered through the intercom followed by a small chuckle. "_I get bored very quickly._" Max's vision blurred as red crept to the edges of her sight. "_When I get bored of my toys I dispose of them._"

Everyone's eyes were on Max as the tension built up in the room. Thor recognised the look on her face and started to back away. Last time she had been like that she had threatened to destroy Asgard. Stark also recognised that look from Monaco.

The room shuddered as something exploded on the helicarrier Max had already darted out of the room. Loki had threatened her partner, a small part of her questioned if this was just another manipulation but the emotional part of her squashed it down.

* * *

><p>Max burst out of the door to the runways, her chakra automatically kicking in to help her breathing at that altitude and stick her to the floor of the unstable helicarrier, she knew if one more engine stopped this thing would start dropping out of the sky. Loki also knew this which is why she was sure it was going to happen.<p>

Scanning the deck she could see Itachi standing by the edge looking over one of the huge propellers still working. "I do wish you'd stop getting mind controlled," Max muttered.

The rest of the flight deck was deserted of people, as it had been since that had taken to the skies. Max shushined over to her partner.

"I told Loki you would come if he threatened my life. You've always been predictable Max." Itachi turned to face her, sharingan blazing, but it was wrong, the red was not there, replaced by a sea blue, the same blue reported as being on the compromised agents. Max couldn't supress the twisting feeling in her gut, why hadn't she realised this earlier. She swallowed thickly and glared at him.

"I was always told an Uchiha bows to no one. Maybe I was lied to." This would be so much easier with Sasuke, his ego was so much more fragile and this would work so much better.

"I thought you were better than that Max. That was a poor attempt at appealing to my ego. Maybe your skills are getting rusty." That hurt, even if it was a bad attempt. Max was struggling with her emotions, not even sure what she should be doing. "Aren't you going to run away, like you normally do when you feel helpless? You know you can't do anything and it terrifies you."

"Every time I turn my back something bad happens and you're always on the other side." Max choked out, her eyes downcast. Her heart still held scars from those experiences, her flesh holding physical wounds from their clashes on opposite sides of the battlefield. Each felt like it had been freshly inflicted. Itachi was still smirking at her not realising her eyes were full of barely controlled rage. "Every time it happens we end up almost destroying each other."

"You can't bring yourself to finish the job though. You always had a soft spot for me. It was bound to get you into trouble at some point."

"Of course I have a soft spot for you. I love you, and that will never change." It was a shame the first time Max said that to Itachi he was under someone's control. She could see red bleeding into his eyes fighting with the blue. Max placed a hand gently on his shoulder willing him to fight it harder and throw of the mind control. Looking into his eyes she watched the internal battle, she knew it was dangerous, if he lost then she doubted she would be able to look away in time. Max was vaguely aware of one of the engines stopping and the carrier started to plummet.

"Help…" Itachi pleaded clutching his head in pain, his eyes swirled with the two colours. His Sharingan was mutating trying to get to the mangekyo form but being forced back. Max squeezed his shoulder in encouragement. "You need to knock me out, put me completely out of action," he gasped out falling to his knees.

"Itachi?" Max crouched down and forced his head up, the red was fading.

"Please?" The last of the red bleed out of his eyes replaced by the blue, the mangekyo spun menacingly. Max looked away, fishing out her headband and tying it over her eyes. She took a few steps back as Itachi stood up and dived at her. Twisting to the side Max had already started blocking Itachi's follow up. She and Itachi had danced this number before, they both knew the steps no matter how much they tried to deviate.

Things shifted slightly when one of the engines started working again, they no longer had to account for the carrier falling into their moves. Max was pulling some of her punches, Itachi had no need to do that and as such Max was sporting more injuries. In all fairness the carrier wasn't fairing much better from their clash.

As usual with the two all it took was a tiny misstep for one of them to gain the upper hand. Itachi had left an opening and Max went for it rushing through a forced sleep jutsu as she thrust her hands towards him.

It never connected, Max's body jerked on instinct as she pivoted, aborting her jutsu and diverting the blade of the sceptre about to impale her. Her FA had picked up on the god's attack and made her respond before she'd even noticed it. She blocked the next attack that Itachi threw at her while she had left herself open and continued to defend as Loki looked upon them.

"Disappointing for a so called legend Silfr Freki," Loki sneered, "You're no doubt disappointed in me too. Maybe you wouldn't be if you know what I was."

Ah, he'd found out about that. Max pinned Itachi, knowing it wouldn't last long like this but she needed to tell Loki what he needed to know, maybe he'd listen to her.

"I was there when Odin took you as his own child Loki, it wasn't out of malice or anything but love. You had been left to die Loki, by your own father. Odin couldn't let you die. He brought you up as his own. You're lucky, not everyone has loving parents or parents still around. I would give almost anything to see Yuri again." Just as the last sentence tumbled out Max grunted in pain, Itachi had slipped free and used her speech as a new opening, slicing at her torso. Max rolled them over a few times to disorientate him and gain a better position, trying to ignore the blood seeping out.

"I know you weren't always treated fairly but that's how life goes. I know everything seems against you, you're angry at everything I understand. But this is not how you deal with your problems." Max took off her headband to look at Loki properly and appeal to him face to face.

Then she noticed something. "Damn." That was not his natural eye colour, or even his disguised form's eye colour. That was the same colour as Itachi's eyes.

* * *

><p>Still one more Avengers chapter left, then more crossovers.<p> 


	18. Battle of New York

You guys know the drill, I have uni which comes first and procrastination which manages to get before that.

I'm also uploading my story onto AO3, editing it a bit to make it flow better, as you lot can probably guess its a long tedious job that ends up with me getting distracted and just reading it again.

Then there's the fact I bought Lego Marvel Super Heroes. Iron Man is so tiny and adorable!

* * *

><p>Loki and Itachi had gone, Max had stupidly dropped her guard in surprise at the fact Loki was seemingly under this mind control too. Now she had a cut across her forearm and a very bruised ribcage from where Itachi had managed to kick her over the side of the helicarrier.<p>

Max knew they would be long gone by the time she apperated back so instead appeared where Stark and the Captain were arguing. Stark had just come to a revelation about the finale. They both noticed her when she announced her arrived with the customary pop followed by some coughing and clutching at her ribs. Rodgers was by her side in an instant looking over her in concern.

"I'm fine, we need to get to Loki." Max said waving off the super soldier, "Someone can fill me in on the way."

"You look like you went through a meat grinder. Maybe you should leave this to us." Rodger offered trying to take her arm and lead her to get looked at by a doctor.

"No. I've had worse. This is like a Tuesday for me," Max insisted.

"Well we're heading for New York, Loki's heading there for a big finale." Stark said, Max was not likely to stand down on this and they could use all the help they could. Max knew the enemy more than they did.

"My partner is under his control, don't expect this to be easy." Max warned as they headed off to kit up. Max thought she saw a flash of sympathy from Romanov.

Opting to take the jet, most of the team piled in, evicting the guy working on it. Agent Rider had joined them as Max was going. He had taken one look at her and sighed before following. "Haku's going to kill you." He muttered to her once they were in flight. Max shrugged and fished out some medical supplies and soldier pills and got to work, sewing up the worst of her injuries and then bandaging them up with Alex's help.

"Are you drinking alcohol?" Someone noticed she was drinking from a hipflask.

"No… Maybe." Max mumbled sheepishly.

"We're going to war and you're getting drunk?"

"Trust me. I need this. I'm the only one who has the skills to take down my partner and he knows my style too well, he doesn't know my drunken style though. It's the only chance to get him back." Max seemed to be trying to convince herself more than the team.

Trying to take on a god while they were in a fairly flimsy jet, that relied on being in one fully working piece to fly, seemed like a bad idea to Max. It did give her a chance to ping out her partner on top of Stark Tower with the device which had created a portal that had creatures pouring out. Max made short work of the distance after diving out of the back of the jet, slipping her ANBU mask over her face as she fell. Having her face known to the world would be a very bad idea.

A fire dragon crested the top of the building preceding Max as she made her dramatic entrance, trying not to wince in pain as her movements tugged on the stitches. Her eyes locked onto Itachi, noting the civilian by the device as an afterthought.

The dragon swooped across the short roof swerving to the side at the last second to allow Max who had followed it to gain the upper hand with the surprise. She ignored the inquiries from the Avengers into what the dragon was as it circled the top of the tower to prevent any interruptions. Max piled on with her offensive letting her drunken instinct lead her movements making her unpredictable, if she had no idea what she was doing it made it difficult for the Sharingan to predict and counter.

It seemed to be working as Max landed a lucky punch that allowed her to follow with a nice combo ending with an unconscious partner. The civilian also on the roof seemed shocked, Max could see the blue/green eyes and did the nice thing, knocking him out gently.

Moments later she was diving for cover as a blast of red light hit the spot she had been in seconds before. Max knew that light, her eyes sought out the origin, using FA when she shouldn't see anything. She had invisible company in the form of a Miss Hermione Granger whom she imagined also had the sea green eyes.

Another spell blasted at her cover, disintegrating it. Max needed the upper hand soon. She threw down a few smoke bombs to cover her movements as she started to circle around to behind the witch. She knew Hermione would have considered that. She probably would still miss what most people would.

Hidden by part of the building Max leapt up to on top of it. People had this funny habit of only looking around on the horizontal plane. Which is why Max affectionately called this move, 'Death from above'. Even if she wasn't going to kill the girl.

It felt too easy just throwing the two precision aimed sebon at her, Using FA to guide them, for the brightest witch of her generation it was hard to believe she had missed that. Maybe if they'd been on a level playing field it would have been fun.

Max realised something was wrong when the sebon hit the building, going through the figure Max had thought was Hermione. She quickly moved, her position compromised. FA wouldn't help her here, magic could apparently fool it which was a shame, she liked having a trick up her sleeve for when people tried to deceive her eyes. Thinking about it, it was actually fairly easy to fool with magic but that was something she could debate on some other time when there wasn't an alien invasion going on.

Assessing the situation Max knew she had to take the offensive, magic was far too resourceful and irritating to defend against. First she had to find the witch. She opened up her senses, still using FA to help filter out unwanted things. Hermione was good at hiding but Max was a kunoichi of the highest level, she would come out on top out of sheer determination if she had to.

It seemed Hermione had done the sensible thing and not even been on the roof with her double. Max's senses pinged her magical signature in a building nearby, close enough she could direct it and see what was going on but far enough to be out of any combat. A few attempts told Max she wouldn't be able to apperate over due to some magical wards, it wouldn't be that easy. Instead Max leapt the distance, sticking to the glass and punching out the window next to her and diving in at the witch, twisting her body enough to miss the curses thrown at her. Max was lucky as she tackled Hermione, they both went down and Hermione was knocked out by the hit to her head as she hit the floor.

Looking out over the city of New York Max had no idea where to help. Summoning dozens of ANBU style clones she sent them to the streets to try and control the invasion. She eyed her partner lying on the floor and sat by him, with this many clones to control she needed to focus and there was no way she was leaving Itachi defenceless on the roof.

* * *

><p>One of her clones noticed a group of people at the base of the tower trying to break in, confirmed a second later by Stark warning the team that someone was trying to hack in past Jarvis. Max redirected that clone to intercept the group.<p>

"Secret Service, We need to get into this building." One of them declared, brandishing a badge. In her other hand Max noticed what looked like a steam punk ray gun. That wasn't standard issue.

"Pull the other one, it has bells on." Max snipped back. She could see a girl leaning a laptop on a short wall, presumably the hacker. "You know Jarvis isn't going to like being hacked?" she called. "I hope you didn't like that laptop." As if on cue the girl yelled at the laptop.

"Look whoever you are, we need to get in that building and stop this invasion." From her perch on the building top Max smirked, these guys were persistent. Most people would not want to stay out in the open during an alien invasion.

Interrupting the lovely argument a bunch of Chitauri landed beside them. The woman fired the steampunk gun and Max was not disappointed by the arc of electricity that fried the alien. Her clone had reacted the second they had landed and the rest were down in various states of dismemberment. Max smirked at the looks on the groups face.

"Who are you?"

"Classified beyond your wildest dreams." Max wanted to meet these guys in person, she switched with her clone, making it become a router for directing the remaining clones. If the group were surprised at the sudden change they didn't show it, Max did noticed one turn to another and mouth 'Artifact?'

"You lot are in danger on the streets." This was demonstrated by more Chitauri landing nearby pinning them against the entrance to the tower. "Jarvis, let them in." Max called, the doors opened and the group piled inside. Max made sure they were safe before turning back to the approaching creatures, her hands flowing through some seals and she pressed a hand to the ground, a layer of ice quickly spread immobilising the aliens. From there Max easily destroyed them, she didn't know what ice would do to them and preferred the safe option of definitely dead.

Slipping into the tower she could see the group had tried to find a way past the atrium.

"So, fancy telling me the truth kids?" Max asked. The older guy of the group adjusted his glasses impatiently as he looked at her.

"Look here, we are on important business, those things are invading New York and you're stopping us from doing our job."

"It's not the job of the secret service to take out alien threats. The agency that does deal with it is dealing with it in case you hadn't noticed." Max dived out of the way as electricity hit the spot she had been standing in. She gave them a hurt look. The woman looked a bit embarrassed.

"It was only going to stun."

"You stun me and New York is screwed. See all those people in black out there pushing back the invaders. That's me." Max explained. She could see they were dying to ask how. Eventually the hacker asked.

"How? Do you have some sort of object you that grants you this power because let me tell you this, nothing good ever comes from it."

"No object. As I said, beyond your wildest dreams."

"What about one opening the portal?" Max tilted her head, the blue cube counted she guessed. She didn't really want these guys near it though.

"You know what it is don't you?" Another voice piped up, Max groaned, another person who could sneak up on her.

"Raise your hand if you know what the tesseract is." The newcomer looked at her then the group.

"This is out of our jurisdiction."

"It's weird and wacky, how is it not ours?" the hacker girl with the coloured stripe in her hair demanded.

"Not used to be getting told no?" Max simpered sarcastically. She got a scowl for her troubles. "I hate to love you and leave you but I have a job to be doing, you should be safe in here. If bad things happen Jarvis will alert someone. Maybe. Adios amigos."

Max returned to the roof of the tower not entirely sure she should have left that group down there, maybe if there weren't aliens invading New York she would investigate, but she had pressing matters to attend to. She took a moment to reconnect as the central processor for her clones and figure out what was happening around, a chuckle slipped out as she saw Iron Man flying into one of the flying abominations. When she saw how effective it was she sent a small squad of her clones on search and explode missions into others. Wasn't particularly nice to watch first hand when she gained her clones memories though. Fishing out her hip flask again she went to drain it only for it to be taken out of her hand.

"Really Maxie, now?"

"If you stopped getting mind screwed every time I turn my back then I wouldn't be. I've been dealing with the stuff sober for long enough."

"Remind me to stage and intervention when this is over."

"Only if I can stage one for your inherent ability to get mind controlled."

It seemed the Avengers and her clones were doing fine, so Max decided that sitting on the top of the tower with Itachi, guarding the cube and directing clones until they could disable the tesseract device.

* * *

><p>I swear by the time I finish this story it will be old enough to legally drink in most countries. Plenty of crossovers to come, revisiting some maybe.<p>

For the recent anon reviewer for when you reach this chapter: I've heard of Magic: The Gathering. I even on occasion play, mostly when the new sets come out. I might crossover at some point if I can figure out how.

Reviews are always loved, I sort of squee when I get them and on occasion do a happy dance.


	19. The Aftermath

Happy New Year

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><p>For all the travelling Max had done she had never eaten shawarma, but here she was with the rest of the Avengers and her partner, slowly eating as they came down off that adrenaline high and their minds worked to process what happened. She made a mental note to suggest Stark get some counselling, out of all of them he had no real life combat training. Banner didn't either but he had coping mechanisms anyway due to his hulk issue.<p>

Loki was in a 'secure' location of Max's choosing, much to SHIELD's displeasure. Max's brother had been confused as to why she wanted him to look after the guy who led the invasion on New York. It had been an interesting explanation but by now Tony was getting used to his sister's weird habits. It had been a bit awkward when Abby had turned up after a date gone bad, luckily after another run through the explanation Loki had turned up the charm, he seemed quite taken with the forensic scientist.

SHIELD had naturally tried to take Loki into custody but found being in Max's custody, even only technically, overwrote theirs. At some point Max figured she ought to figure out the chain of command between the various organisations. Or someone would tell her, that would be nice.

It was a while until SHIELD actually sent in a team to check on them and made them go to a debrief, she wasn't the only one who looked a bit skittish, Banner looked ready to bolt even Itachi looked a bit weary of going anywhere SHIELD controlled.

* * *

><p>"It's nice to see you left New York mostly standing." After being dragged kicking and screaming to the medical bay after the debrief Max had drawn the line at having her phone taken, no matter how much Itachi tried to take it off her. He knew people only phone her to ask for help. Hopefully he was actually asleep in the chair and not just pretending.<p>

"Go die in a hole Mycroft." Max had to squirm around Itachi's latest attempt to take her phone while she was distracted. Of course he hadn't been asleep.

"Charming. I heard you had been injured and thought it pertinent to inquire as to your health."

"You wanted to see if I'm up for a job," Max translated finally getting the upper hand and sitting on Itachi's back, holding his wrists and viciously kneeing him when he struggled. She knew he wouldn't do anything to risk her putting her more professionally done stitches or cause her too much pain, she was perfectly fine with using that to her advantage "Don't you have your own agency for this kind of thing?"

"I do, but none with your skills, I recently acquired your file. It was a very interesting read, almost fantastical but explained a great deal about the happenings in Monaco."

"Cut to the chase or I hang up."

"An individual had become interested in my brother in an unhealthy way-"

"I'm not here to scare away potential girlfriends." Max interrupted knowing full well that wasn't what was being asked. Itachi snorted into the bed before renewing his attempts to free himself without hurting Max.

"Hardly. I fear this individual's intentions will endanger my brother."

"Lovely. So, what? Straight assassination or I can wait until your brother's in danger and about to die then assassinate?" Itachi reacted on the first mention of assassination and struggled harder, managing to send Max rolling off, curling up to protect her injuries. They both dived for the dropped phone wrestling over it, somehow it got changed to speaker phone and Mycroft spoke up, pausing their brawl to listen.

"I do hope I'm not interrupting anything." Max could only imagine what that scuffle could have been mistaken for. "I think the rest of this conversation should be done in person, less people listening. I can arrange transport if you require but you will have to be on the ground for it. You may bring your partner if you wish."

"Just text me a place and a time, we'll be there." Itachi growled and disconnecting the call. He turned back to Max who was eying up her phone, probably wondering if she could grab it and disappear. "You aren't seriously considering this."

"Why not?"

"I didn't exactly go easy on you. You need time to recover. Throwing yourself into another mission isn't going to help you. As it is Haku will likely punch you again if he finds out you're mistreating your own body again."

"I'm fine." Itachi chuckled darkly, those words were almost reflex for ANBU. He leapt at her and jabbed her shoulder, precisely where the tanto had been a few weeks ago. Max visible winced, her shoulder tensing in pain halting her moves to get him off. Itachi didn't stop though, prodding other half healed wounds and bruises he knew of, each touch firm enough to stop her from acting to stop him as her body reacted to the pain. He could tell Max was getting angry, he would be too in her position.

"That's a strange definition of fine," he growled, finally stopping, pinning her arms to keep her from retaliating just yet. He could feel her straining against his weight, feeling her shift in position to throw him off.

"Get off me," Max snarled, punctuating her words with a roll of her hips pitching him over the side of the bed. Itachi kept his grip on her arms and so Max unwillingly fell with him. There was a muted thump at Itachi's back hit the floor. It hurt more than he'd expected and Max managed to pull free, standing over him. "I am fine. Leave me alone," she snarled, snatched her phone from the bed and walked out. Itachi could have easily gotten up and stopped her but he knew the whole thing would just be repeated. Instead he sighed and fished out his own phone, only two people could really help him now and luckily one of them was supposed to be on this planet.

"Laura? I need your help."

* * *

><p>"I thought your friend would be here with you." Max stood in a room waiting for Mycroft to stop mincing words and just give her a job. The rage from earlier was still simmering under her skin, once she was briefed she would blow it off and start work.<p>

"He was called away," Max lied easily. "I can manage anything required for this mission on my own." Mycroft gave a smile that made it look like he didn't believe her and Max couldn't bring herself to care. She was still on edge, practically waiting for Itachi to turn up and attempt to make her better.

"While an assassination would be appreciated I fear this individual has an organisation which will act upon his death and threaten the lives of many more people. What I would require of you is more along the lines of protection for my brother, infiltration and information on his work. Knowledge is power after all."

"I thought you had your own spies for this, why do you need me? What could this guy be capable of that you can't send your own men in to deal with?"

"That is rather difficult to explain actually. This individual has legally done nothing wrong, even with my minor position in the government I cannot authorise and official mission. You however are off the radar so to speak."

"When do I start?"

* * *

><p>Itachi was holding his phone at arm's length as Laura ranted off a list of things he apparently was stupid enough to do. While it was enlightening it wasn't helping him fix it. He knew he'd been a bit callous sometimes when dealing with Max but it was like how he'd always been with her when they were on a team. He guess that was several fake betrayals and mind controls ago, apparently he just hadn't seen the changes.<p>

When the ranting stopped, Itachi moved the phone back to his ear, ready to move it is she started yelling again.

"So what do I do?"

"Start treating her like an equal, not a child, not a subordinate and definitely not a startled animal. Instead of telling her not to do things and pointing out flaws in her, accept them and work with them. You say she isn't eating or sleeping properly, have you tried finding out why? Have you thought about doing something other than chastising her for it and threatening to take away what makes her feel alive."

"What would you suggest I do, if I can find her again?"

"I know ninja training taught you to use seduction and romance as a means to an end. Now try to use them to make her happy. Do nice things for her. You might want to beg for forgiveness first or she'll treat everything with suspicion and you won't get anywhere. I know you have a lot of pride, but if you still want her, you're going to have to lose some of it." Strands of a plan started to form in Itachi's head.

Before he got to into them Laura interrupted. "Itachi, I want you to listen very carefully to what I am about to say. Having Max is not a right, it is a privilege that I can and I will take away. If you ever have to call me for advice like this, you will break if off with her, and make it as clean as possible. I don't want her hurt, she can only take so much with all that's happened. You make it clean then I'll be merciful. You break her and you'll wish I'd broken you." Itachi felt fear, true fear, squeeze his heart at Laura's cold threatening words. He had no doubt she would carry through.

"I understand." The dial tone answered him, Laura had hung up on him.

* * *

><p>Under Cheyenne Mountain Laura sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to stave off a headache she could feel coming on. She scrolled through her contacts and selected Max's latest number. She knew she was guilty of some of the things she'd yelled at Itachi for but she owed it to her friend to keep her alive and mentally as stable as possible. For that reason she pressed on the green phone symbol and waited to see if Max would answer.<p>

"Hello?" Laura was surprised when Max actually answered.

"It's Laura-"

"Did Itachi call and ask where I was. Or tell you that I'm not looking after myself?" Max accused.

"No, well not exactly, he told me what happened then I yelled at him for being an idiot." Max actually laughed a bit. A sound Laura hadn't heard for a while.

"So why the call? It's never just social anymore."

"I know. I gave Itachi some advice but I figured I should give you a heads up. If you want me to tell him to leave you alone I can call him off. If you never want to see him again I can make that happen. I can make this a clean break for you if you want it." Laura heard a sigh.

"I don't know, I need some time alone to think. I'm going off the grid for a mission, keep him away from London for the moment. I'll let you know once I'm done. Tell him to try not to be mind-controlled next time I see him."

"Of course. Try to not be half dead?"

"Only because you are my bestest friend and threatened and ANBU captain for me."

"I would do it every day to keep you alive. I know you would do it for me."

"That's a good point, how is Sasuke? I can take a side trip after my mission and do some threatening if you want?" Laura giggled, if Max threatened Sasuke on behalf of Laura then he would probably need therapy and a change of underwear.

"That won't be necessary. Good luck on your mission."

* * *

><p>Max ended the call and tossed the phone onto the table of the café. She had her customary squad of clones, disguised as civilians, searching London for her target.<p>

One James Moriarty.

Taking a sip of her coffee Max flipped to the next page of the mission brief. She'd had the foresight to layer a genjutsu over it so anyone looking over her shoulder would just see a magazine. It was reassuring to know that she wouldn't be constantly looking over her shoulder, especially with a mission this delicate. It was unfortunate, Itachi would have been a good help with planning and executing this mission.

It wasn't too difficult to figure out what Moriarty wanted, Max had seen his type all the time. Having ninja powers often brought out the psychopath in people, they needed something to keep them amuse and became very possessive of their chosen 'toy' to the point they would rather both of them die then let someone else have their toy. That was only sometimes, on other occasions the toy became a partner, and on occasion they would seek out another toy together.

Max supposed she could just observe Sherlock for a while then subtly replace him before Moriarty got bored and tried to end them both. She would then have to take down the rest of his crime web. Mycroft had offered the assistance of both MI5 and MI6, depending on the location of the targets. She would prefer to do it neater, and on her own.

This would no doubt be an interesting mission. Not two seconds later her phone blipped. An update. Three secure places had been broken into and Moriarty hadn't even bothered to hide. It seemed she was right in time for the climax of Moriarty's drama.

* * *

><p>As this was written before season 3 it will not be compliant so you don't have to worry about spoilers.<p>

I have an AO3 account now, same pen name, one new story and how ever far I have got with posting this.

For some reason I think a Loki/Abby pairing/friendship would be hilarious.

Reviews are loved and adored.


	20. The impossible is eliminated, call Max

The less said about why this took so long, the better.

* * *

><p>Watching Moriarty's play had been interesting. Max had to admit it was genius as she watched Sherlock get rid of his friend, ready for the final showdown. One that she would change into Moriarty's final downfall and Sherlock's rising from the ashes of his destroyed reputation.<p>

Then her phone rang.

Mycroft knew not to call her, always text. But there it was. She picked up and her blood froze as Mycroft rushed out an explanation. He needed her immediate assistance, a high ranking member of the SIS was kidnapped and in a place there should be no escape from. He needed her more supernatural skills. Max's brain was going a mile a minute hashing out a secondary plan, from the scarce details given to her she would need to go to the other situation, no doubt engineered by Moriarty to take the focus off Sherlock's finale and prevent anyone from interfering. Max wondered if he knew about her involvement while she created a clone to stand in for her at the finale, as an after though she created another. She had no idea what Moriarty knew and it was best to be prepared. With that done she apparated to the location Mycroft had sent.

There was a crunch of gravel as her feet landed in a car park of an empty industrial estate she quickly made her way to the temporary command centre, otherwise known as a bunch of cars and a SpecOps van. A few of the armed men moved to stop her but were waved back by Mycroft. Ushered into the van Max saw a complete set up and unfortunately a certain double-O agent who immediately reached for his gun, pointing it at her head, Max had already returned the favour. It was a bit awkward in such a small space and a few of the technicians flattened themselves as far away from the two assassins.

"I hardly think now is the time," Mycroft interrupted. There was a short tense silence as the two of them glared.

"If you intentionally screw up this mission I will not hesitate to kill you," Bond threatened as he left the van and slammed the door. Mycroft gave her a weird look but started to explain the situation in detail.

Feeds showed the inside of one of the warehouses with a young man hung from the ceiling by a single chain, another chain attached his feet to the floor, stretching him out. The man bore more than just a passing resemblance to Sherlock and when Max voice that observation Mycroft admitted it was his other younger brother.

Then came the details of the traps that made extraction impossible for normal people. A multitude of motion sensors and pressure sensors linked to explosives. The chains themselves were wired so if too much changed then the explosives would blow and to top it all off there was a video camera watching. Mycroft explained that Moriarty wanted him to see both his brothers destroyed while helpless to save them. The camera was just in case they managed to get past the sensors so Moriarty could show that all their efforts would be for nothing.

Max already had a plan mostly finished by the time Mycroft finished, then it got made redundant when he added one detail.

"It's a magic dead zone." There went the apparate in and out plan.

"What do you expect me to do?" Max asked, rehashing the plan out thanking the deities that she'd met that magic and charka were different enough that chakra would work for a while.

"Whatever it takes to get the job done, you have a habit of doing the impossible."

"Get a medical team who are cleared for weird shite ready to follow me, and then when I get your brother out they will need to run and get as far away as possible. I would recommend you also move further back, there's no way to stop the building exploding. I'll give them as long as I can."

"The team should be outside waiting."

"Quick question, how much does your brother weigh, approximately?" Max asked as they exited the van. She got a crazy look but a rough answer. She led the small team of medics closer to the building, flashing FA to confirm her target's location. She henged into Mycroft's brother and adjusted her worn weights so she would be practically identical when she replace him with herself. Focusing on the image from the screen she mimicked the pose and switched. Max was so glad she'd had so much practice to do this without hand signs as she hung by the chains in the warehouse. This extraction would have been so much more difficult otherwise. As it was with the magical dead zone her henge would only last a few minutes but that should be enough time for everyone to get clear. She mildly regretted not leaving a few clones around.

FA confirmed that the target was in safe hands and everyone was retreating. Max allowed herself to focus on her clones with Sherlock. So far there was just a bunch of words being used like chess moves. It was amusing to watch, her clones would stay on standby until told otherwise.

Moriarty shooting himself came as a surprise and the click Max heard in the warehouse followed by a ticking gave Max the impression she should leave. The others should have had time to get far enough away. Max powered up her limbs and broke the chains, shushining the second her feet hit the ground. The blast still knocked her off her feet and back a few meters. Shushin only had a finite range and it obviously hadn't been far enough. Max looked back at the burning ruin, nothing would have survived that. If they had stayed in position they would have been caught up in the edges of the explosion.

Only half focusing on what she was doing she stumbled away from the burning wreckage, allowing her henge to drop, to where the remnants of the extraction team were, the ambulance was gone, with it Mycroft and his brother.

Talking of Mycroft's brothers, Max's clone switched out with Sherlock half way through freefall over the side of the hospital. She knew Sherlock had a plan, but she also knew that Moriarty had a person on the street to confirm the death. At least Max had improved in faking injuries with blood on her clones.

To her surprise, Bond was still there when she got to the team, she wasn't sure why they were still there, possibly to see if she survived and keep onlookers away. He was just lounging by the van while everyone else worked to pack up the equipment.

"Mr Holmes sends his thanks," the agent said gruffly avoiding actually looking at her face, he probably wasn't used to being a messenger. Max nodded in acknowledgement, she was unsure of what to do, she didn't really want to apparate out in front of normal people but she ached now and it hurt to walk. Risking a glance she noticed she was actually bleeding and she had parts of her now wrecked phone sticking out of her leg. At least she had an excuse for taking a while to get back into contact with everyone.

She sat on the gravel and meditated until everyone was gone. It was nice to have some peace and quiet, now that she had some. Then again anything was better than the confrontation that would happen.

* * *

><p>Naturally the peace didn't last long. The crunch of gravel under tires heralded a new arrival. She recognised the voices that were bickering as they got out of the car and heard the pause in gravel crunching as they noticed her and stopped. Max wondered why they were here, after the battle of new York she'd done some research and tracked it back to 'Warehouse 13' which officially existed as an IRS warehouse. Unofficially it collected mysterious artifacts. Max bet that the magical community just loved that.<p>

"I'm guessing you're going to tell us that this isn't our jurisdiction either."

"Probably isn't yours," Max muttered refusing to even open her eyes, she could see them well enough with FA, though having a dark spot where the dead zone was weird and Max was trying to figure out why.

"How do you know?"

"You said you were secret service. However we are currently in England and there is no president anywhere close to here. If you're referring to your other career, then I wouldn't know as I don't know what you do but I'm going to say no regardless." She was going to get them to admit what they did, what she had found out she shouldn't have been able to and would warrant some research into her own background which would be annoying.

"You know, with the building on fire, I'd have thought someone would be here to put it out." It was cute how they tried to be condescending but Max really wasn't in the mood after Mycroft and 007.

"Need to wait for the bomb squad too." Max informed them, there could potentially be other explosives in the area. She gestured to the collapsing building. "That was the work of a mad man." That got their attention nicely.

"Why are you here?" Max could definitely see them being some sort of government agents, they asked so many questions.

"Fancied hanging around, always loved a burning building." Only from the outside. She'd been inside more than enough. "What are you looking for? Don't give me some bullcrap either, I'm not above abusing my power right now." Max grumbled as she finally got up.

"Who are you?"

"I can't believe it took you this long to ask. The name's Rho." That sparked some recognition, though they frowned at the obviously fake name.

"You were on that Kira case."

"Yes, I helped solve it."

"Can you settle something for us? Was it some weird voodoo shite? Because I think it is but Myka thinks it was an artifact that should have been collected, but it was before our time."

"It was like an artifact and like the tesseract it did not belong on Earth, but we destroyed it anyway." Lies, well, mostly, sort of. Max actually couldn't remember what happened to all of them. The guy looked a bit down at not being right with his theory.

"Look, we really need to get to work." The woman, Myka, declared dismissively.

"What are the symptoms?" That got an odd look but masked it pretty quickly.

"You are not helping us."

"Are you still sore about New York?" No matter how hard the adults tried they looked a bit pouty, so yes they were sore about it. "Well, try to be a bit more useful than you were in New York." Max was allowed to be bitter with a smile too. Without waiting for whatever response they had Max apparated out of there.

It probably hadn't been the best idea to apparate without a solid destination in mind. At least she was all there, no missing bits. She did know where she was too so it wasn't all bad, it was just something she shouldn't make a habit of.

* * *

><p>In England Max had few places she called safe. One of them she hadn't technically visited in this dimension, but here she was standing by a tree in a park near her old home from her former dimension. She was glad it was deserted, still school time and no parents with toddlers milling around, that would have been a pain to cover up. A quick clone and a short wait later and Max had a new phone, the old sim card still in one piece.<p>

She sat against her tree and pulled out her phone, fiddling with it as she mulled over her next course of action. She'd promised to sort things out after her current mission and that was all done and dusted. Now that she had nothing to do she could feel the aches and pains she'd been ignoring so well. Maybe she just needed a break, somewhere nice and calm. Or with something easy to do at least, calm would just drive her nuts.

Max almost dropped her phone when it vibrated into life. She sighed as she saw Laura's name there and reluctantly swiped at the screen to accept the call.

"Don't you think the explosion was a bit excessive?" Laura asked in that long suffering tone that had Max rolling her eyes.

"Contrary to popular belief not everything hugely destructive is my fault."

"So Forks was someone else then?"

"No that was me, I'm sure there are something's that haven't been me though."

"Does the explosion mean you're done with your mission?" Max paused trying to decide whether to lie and procrastinate. "I'll take that as a yes. There's a plane ticket booked in your name to California. I know you were going to sort out your relationship with Itachi and you can do it in the lovely town of Beacon Hills, California."

"What's wrong with it?"

* * *

><p>Guess the next crossover (and what I spent that last week and a half watching)<p>

Reviews would make me feel a lot better than I've been recently.


	21. A Werewolf in California

Gah, dissertation work makes me not want to do anything.

* * *

><p>At first glance Beacon Hills was a normal town. Normal became less normal with the unusually high number of 'animal' attacks and deaths in the last few months. Laura just shrugged it off as coincidence with that smug tone and gave her an address and said she expected them to stay for at least a few months. Neither Shinobi felt like arguing with her, it would be fruitless in the end.<p>

As Max drove into the town, with the music blaring so loud that Itachi didn't even bother trying to talk to her, a feeling settled into her stomach. It had some familiarity but she couldn't place it yet.

Eventually she pulled into the driveway of the house Laura had so kindly bought for them and killed the engine, the sudden silence swamped them. Max glanced at Itachi and saw him about to speak and interrupted by opening her door and getting out. They were not going to have any sort of meaningful conversation in her nice new car. Her Mustang was still with her brother and she was unlikely to need it back unless she returned to DC. Instead she had a nice silver Aston Martin Vanquish which was her new baby and she did not want to mar with arguments inside it.

By the time she'd reached the door with the right key in hand Itachi was by her side. He'd taken the hint that she didn't want to talk to him yet and so was just watching her with the traditional blank look. This was going to be interesting Max thought as she opened the door, briefly turning back to lock her car. Out of habit they both swiftly moved through the house, scoping out the rooms to get an idea of where everything was. It was much bigger than they needed, several bedrooms more that they needed. Max decided she didn't want to look to far into it.

They met up again in the living room where Max looked thoughtful for a second before sniggering a bit. Itachi shot her a questioning look, unsure if she would cut him off again if he vocalised his question.

"Laura gets us a nice 40 inch TV, pulls out all the stops for furnishings but there isn't a drop of alcohol in this house."

"You aren't legally allowed to drink in this country." Itachi commented trying to sound light hearted, they both knew that Max didn't care about legal drinking ages. "She wants us to pretend to be normal for a few months and if you get caught drunk and underage she will be pissed."

"I guess that means no speeding either, or the occasional mission," Max pouted flinging herself onto the sofa. "How are we going to be normal? Nothing about us will ever be normal. We kill people for a living."

"I think killing people is actually one of the more normal things we do." He had a point. "If you want I'll go to the store and get you a drink." Max rolled over to look at him critically. "Just try to be sensible with it." He was holding out a compromise. Max could easily get her own booze but Itachi was showing her wanted to look out for her but wasn't going to stop her. Laura really did give him a good talking to. Max fished out her keys and tossed them over.

"If I'm not here when you get back then I'll be scouting out the area." It was her own compromise, she was letting him know about her plans instead of her just disappearing, but she was still doing it on her own.

* * *

><p>The woods reminded Max of Konoha, except with more hills and less sturdy trees. She'd sent out some clones to cover the town but being in the woods was increasing that gut feeling and she wanted to personally find out why.<p>

It felt good to be running amongst the trees again, feeling the local wildlife scattering as she bounded through the undergrowth with barely a sound. If she wanted she could go fully silent but there was not point right now, she wasn't hunting.

There was a shift in the rhythm of the forest that Max had been enjoying. Something was traveling towards her. She could immediately tell it wasn't Itachi. As much as she wouldn't mind leading the pursuer in a merry chase she wanted to get a scope of what was around. She jumped into one of the trees to wait.

Not long later a man slowed to a jog into the area, stopping near the tree Max was lounging in. Now he was closer, and fairly still, Max examined him. She sighed when she realised what he was, knowing he would figure out where she was when he finally bothered to look up. People really didn't bother looking up though. Eyes pierced into her as she gracefully dropped down.

"I thought there were no wolves in California." Max commented with a smirk. It was returned with a scowl and a flash of red eyes. "An Alpha, I'm honoured." Max had really read up after Forks on the supernatural, her education at Hogwarts was mediocre at best. Though she'd found it had been for the best that Forks was destroyed or at least the Cullen house, there was no way of knowing how far their influence had spread what with one of them working at the hospital.

"Who are you?" Max simply laughed, she was so many things to so many people.

"Don't worry about me, I have no bad intentions towards you or your pack. I'm simply here on vacation."

"That didn't answer my question."

"It's the only answer you're going to get." From the way he was growling and tensing Max would have had to be blind to think he wouldn't attack her. She contemplated how badly she should defeat him, what was the right amount so it didn't look too easy but didn't hurt him too badly? She saw claws flick out seconds before he charged at her.

It was laughably easy how she took him down. He was persistent and had healing on his side but Max outclassed him, everything was telegraphed and fancy flips with the Alpha. With training he'd possibly be able to challenge her, in taijustu only though, and only because of werewolf speed and strength. Eventually she got bored and pinned him with a kunai to his throat.

"What's your name Alpha?" She got a defiant glare in response. "Look dude, all I want is your name. Don't make me hunt down your pack to find it." Max hadn't wanted to threaten his pack but it worked.

"Derek."

"Do you come with a last name?"

"Hale."

"How painful was that?" Max asked getting off the guy and offering out a hand. Naturally it was ignored and Max found herself being shoved up against a tree with claws to her throat. She may have pissed him off a bit but she did like to indulge her masochistic side on occasion.

"Very."

"Oh you do have a sense of humour." Max felt the claws press harder against her skin. "Your secret's safe with me."

"I told you my name, now tell me yours." Max debated with herself for a bit, it wouldn't hurt and would hopefully convey cooperation. Laura would not be happy if they had to leave prematurely even if it was due to a werewolf feud.

"Max Hakie."

"Do you have any form of self-preservation Max?" The claws broke skin.

"No, haven't for a while."

"I could kill you now."

"You think so? I spend five minutes toying with you, I could kill you before you could do anything even vaguely fatal. You've never seen anything like me so it would be a good idea not to underestimate me." Max decided to demonstrate her point and kicked the werewolf away, breaking the wrist that had been holding her throat in the process. Having been held by his wrist, Derek didn't get far and was slammed into the ground with Max's assistance. "I suggest you avoid me until I leave. If you attack me again then I will not be as lenient."

For dramatic effect Max shushined away, she would send clones to finish the job. Werewolves explained some of her gut feeling but she suspected there was more to it. Now she was going to fill Itachi in on werewolves, there were something's he would need to know to look out for in case Alpha Hale felt that he was a weak link. That in itself was laughable but she also wanted to make sure Itachi didn't kill him or his pack without a good reason.

* * *

><p>"Wasn't one of your teachers a werewolf?" Itachi questioned as they sat watching the ice hockey with a tumbler of whiskey each. There were a few empty pizza boxes balanced on the coffee table. Neither of them wanted to cook yet, not until they checked to food. Max knew that Laura wouldn't but who knew if the others had gotten their hands on it. Interfering kids.<p>

"Magical werewolves are different, they have less control because of the chaotic nature of magic and its interaction with the bite. This kind have more control and different dynamic, magical weres don't have alphas or betas, they all count as alphas because of magic, they can all bite to change." That talk in La Push had been informative and useful after all. They sat in silence for a bit, watching the game.

"Laura knew didn't she? Quiet town my arse," Itachi muttered getting a small laugh from Max.

"I guess she knew one of us would go batshit if it was truly quiet."

"One of us? I'm the normal one."

"True enough. Well as the abnormal one, I am going to nap so I can creep out the friendly neighbourhood weres tomorrow."

Max had reached the top of the stairs before she realised they hadn't discussed sleeping arrangements. Normally while they were on the same side they would sleep in the same bed, but everything was a bit raw and she didn't know if she wanted to yet.

Making her decision she walked towards the second bedroom, that should make it clear what she intended for when Itachi went to bed. Stowing weapons for easy access, she climbed into bed and curled up, waiting for the tension to leave so she could sleep. Maybe they should have had that talk before she went to bed, her mind would not stop thinking about every possible scenario that could happen. She wasn't even entirely sure what the talk would be about, sure they'd messed up but it was from a long line of small things that were one-offs.

Eventually she dropped off into a light sleep, she wasn't sure how well Laura had protected the house, she would call in the morning.

* * *

><p>Waking up to the smell of frying bacon was very much a rarity in Max's life. Getting dressed, she headed to the kitchen where there were two plates set out, each with a bacon sandwich. Itachi noticed her enter, turning from the sink and gestured to the plates.<p>

"Eat." He phrased it as a suggestion, obviously taking Laura's comments to heart. Max hesitated, trying to ground the insecurities buzzing around her head. "It's just breakfast, don't over think it."

The bacon sandwich was good, Max wondered why she'd been living off rations and fast food when this was an option, stopping her thoughts before it answered her own rhetorical question.

"I'm heading over to the sheriff's office to make my presence known." Max stated putting the dish into the sink. "You can come with me if you want?"

"I was going to check out the woods for myself, I'll avoid the weres though, keep that element of surprise."

"Be careful, I don't know how big the pack is, their alpha seems a bit clueless though, probably hasn't been an alpha more than about half a year. The rest are unknown, though a normal pack has at least three betas." Itachi nodded. "They also have Naruto like healing powers."

"How come you don't have something like that? Gaara has his sand to defend himself, Naruto heals ridiculously fast. You don't have a survival mechanism." Itachi asked as they left the house.

"We don't exactly know if the others do too, maybe they are the exceptions. Well, Gaara has the sand because the seal is faulty, but Naruto might be the only one to have something that strong." Max explained, she got into her car, making sure Itachi was out of the way before driving off. It felt odd to be driving around, normal speed in a suburban area. Laura was mental when she thought this life was for either of them. At the very least she wanted her bike, but she'd have to engineer the acquisition. Suburbs in the US tended to hold nosy people.

* * *

><p>The Sheriffs office was a simple building, Max was resisting the urge to wander off and do anything else, she could tell this would be tedious. Before the urge because action Max entered the building.<p>

"I'm here to see the Sheriff," she told the lady at the front desk.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"I have this, it should count." Max handed over her ID, the one that gave her free reign over most law enforcement, both common and secret. The woman took the ID and eyed it sceptically as she picked up the phone in front of her. Max leant on the desk to wait, staring at the various posters and flyers littering the wall.

"Miss Hakie?" Max automatically turned to the voice, immediately noting that it was the sheriff for future reference. Her ID was put into her hand before she was beckoned to follow the man. "I believe we have something of yours." Max frowned, Itachi had literally not had enough time to get arrested in this town. She was ignoring the Laura sounding laughter in her head.

The laughter only got louder when she was lead to the holding cells. The extra rooms in the house were seeming a bit more deliberate.

"Max." It could have been worse, Max thought as a certain Norse god casually reclined in one of the cells, looking like he had chosen to be there. "Your brother was assigned to a boat and so unless you want custody to pass to undesirable agencies, I was sent here by your friend. Laura is a delightful woman."

Still not the worst situation.

* * *

><p>I watched all of Teen Wolf over a few weeks. It reminded me of Buffy The Vampire Slayer but with more high school romance (which I skipped over). The beta forms are actually so bad they're hilarious.<p>

Updates might get more regular after I finish uni, but I'm still splitting my writing time between this and my story on AO3. (This is still my main baby)


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